Basic Search Tips

QUICK TIPS

NOTE: These tips will work with most search engines in their basic search option.

• Use the plus (+) and minus (-) signs in front of words to force their inclusion and/or exclusion in searches.
  EXAMPLE: +meat -potatoes
  (NO space between the sign and the keyword)
  
• Use double quotation marks (" ") around phrases to ensure they are searched exactly as is, with the words side by side in the same order.
  EXAMPLE: "bye bye miss american pie"
  (Do NOT put quotation marks around a single word.)
  
• Put your most important keywords first in the string.
  EXAMPLE: dog breed family pet choose
  
• Type keywords and phrases in lower case to find both lower and upper case versions. Typing capital letters will usually return only an exact match.
  EXAMPLE: president retrieves both president and President
  
• Use truncation (or stemming) and wildcards (e.g., *) to look for variations in spelling and word form.
  EXAMPLE: librar* returns library, libraries, librarian, etc.
  EXAMPLE: colo*r returns color (American spelling) and colour (British spelling)
  
• Combine phrases with keywords, using the double quotes and the plus (+) and/or minus (-) signs.
  EXAMPLE: +cowboys +"wild west" -football -dallas
  (In this case, if you use a keyword with a +sign, you must put the +sign in front of the phrase as well. When searching for a phrase alone, the +sign is not necessary.)
  
• When searching within a document for the location of your keyword(s), use the "find" command on that page.
  
• Know the default (basic) settings your search engine uses (OR or AND). This will have an effect on how you configure your search statement because, if you don't use any signs (+, -, " "), the engine will default to its own settings.
  
• Know whether or not the search engine you are using maintains a stop word list (see "Stop Words" Lesson 6.) If it does, don't use known stop words in your search statement. Also, consider trying your search on another engine that does not recognize stop words.

Quick Tips for Boolean Searches

• In Boolean searches, always enclose OR statements in parentheses.
  EXAMPLE: Yosemite (campgrounds OR reservations)
  
• Always use CAPS when typing Boolean operators in your search statements. Most engines require that the operators (AND, OR, AND NOT/NOT) be capitalized. Other engines will accept either CAPS or lower case, so you're on safe ground if you stick to CAPS.
  EXAMPLE: "immune system" AND homeopathic (medicine OR remedy)
  

I believe I have given you the ins and outs of seraching the internet. What you want to search for, depends on you

Yours Truly,
Ferdinand Che.

Search Strategies

STARTING OUT

It's always a good idea to THINK about your search before you begin. Create a search strategy in your head by asking yourself this question:

What do I want to do?

1. Browse?
2. Locate a specific piece of information?
3. Retrieve everything I can on the subject?

Your answer will determine how you conduct your search and what tools you will use.

1. If you're browsing and trying to determine what's available in your subject area, start out by selecting a subject directory like Yahoo! Then, enter your search keyword(s) into one of the metasearch engines, such as Vivisimo, just to see what's out there.
   
2. If you're looking for a specific piece of information, go to a major search engine such as Google, or to a specialized database such as Bureau of the Census (for statistics).
   
3. If you want to retrieve everything you can on a subject, try the same search on several search engines. Also, don't forget to check resources off the Web, such as books, newspapers, journals and other print reference sources.

DEFAULTS, AND OTHER STUFF

In your search statement, if you enter more than one keyword without using any accompanying sign, mark or symbol (see Lesson 7 and Lesson 8 for explanations and examples), the search engine will automatically add either the AND or the OR conjunction to link your search terms together. This could radically alter your search in unexpected ways. Be sure you know the defaults (basic settings) of the search engine you are using, as this could explain why your search results may not be what you expected them to be.

Strange things can happen for other reasons as well. Sometimes the relevance ranking systems that search engines use (and which they are reluctant to reveal), can throw off your search by ignoring some of the words in your search statement. This might happen when the search engine recognizes your string of separate keywords as a phrase in its list of pre-determined phrases or when it is responding to its own internal list of "stop words" (see below). Whatever the case, you may never know the real reason why your search retrieves so many irrelevant responses.

STOP WORDS

Stop words are words that many search engines DON'T stop for when searching texts and titles on the web. In fact, in order to cut down on response time, these engines routinely ignore stop words, i.e., small and common words, such as parts of speech (adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, or forms of "to be"). Examples include: a, about, an, and, are, as, at, be, by, from, how, i, in, is, it, of, on, or, that, the, this, to, we, what, when, where, which, with, etc. Not all search engines recognize the same stop words. In addition, their lists can and do change frequently. If you initiate a search at a site that maintains a list of stop words and you type any of those words into your search statement (even in phrases surrounded by quotes), they may well continue to be ignored. An exception to this is Google, which has a stop word list but recognizes stop words within phrases surrounded by quotation marks, e.g., "to be or not to be" or "what you see is what you get".

CREATING A SEARCH STATEMENT

When structuring your query, keep the following tips in mind:
[NOTE: See Lesson 7 for an explanation of the signs and marks used below.]

• Be specific
  EXAMPLE: Hurricane Hugo
  
• Whenever possible, use nouns and objects as keywords
  EXAMPLE: fiesta dinnerware plates cups saucers
  
• Put most important terms first in your keyword list; to ensure that they will be searched, put a +sign in front of each one
  EXAMPLE: +hybrid +electric +gas +vehicles
  
• Use at least three keywords in your query
  EXAMPLE: interaction vitamins drugs
  
• Combine keywords, whenever possible, into phrases
  EXAMPLE: "search engine tutorial"
  
• Avoid common words, e.g., water, unless they're part of a phrase
  EXAMPLE: "bottled water"
  
• Think about words you'd expect to find in the body of the page, and use them as keywords
  EXAMPLE: anorexia bulimia eating disorder
  
• Write down your search statement and revise it before you type it into a search engine query box
  EXAMPLE: +"south carolina" +"financial aid" +applications +grants

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ASSIGNMENT:

Assume you are about to start looking for work and need to write a cover letter. What search string would you use? Go to Google and select a few of the following strings to search:

1. "cover letter" "job search"
2. "cover letter" +resume
3. "cover letter" +template +form
4. "cover letter" +example
5. "cover letter" +sample "helpful tips"

Scan the results page for each search you conduct and see if you can tell which searches seem to be the most productive and why.

Yours Truly,
Ferdinand Che

Evaluating Websites

CHECKING THE SOURCE

You can expect to find everything on the web: silly sites, hoaxes, frivolous and serious personal pages, commercials, reviews, articles, full-text documents, academic courses, scholarly papers, reference sources, and scientific reports. How do you sort it all out?

READING WEB ADDRESSES

First, you need to know how to read a web address, or URL (Universal Resource Locator). Let's look at the URL for this tutorial:

http://www.sc.edu/beaufort/library/pages/bones/bones.shtml

Here's what it all means:

• "http" means hypertext transfer protocol and refers to the format used to transfer and deal with information
• "www" stands for World Wide Web and is the general name for the host server that supports text, graphics, sound files, etc. (It is not an essential part of the address, and some sites choose not to use it)
• "sc" is the second-level domain name and usually designates the server's location, in this case, the University of South Carolina
• "edu" is the top-level domain name (see below)
• "beaufort" is the directory name
• "library" is the sub-directory name
• "pages" and "bones" are folder and sub-folder names
• the second "bones" is the file name
• "shtml" is the file type extension and, in this case, stands for "scripted hypertext mark-up language" (that's the language the computer reads). The addition of the "s" indicates that the server will scan the page for commands that require additional insertion before the page is sent to the user.

Only a few top-level domains are currently recognized, but this is changing. Here is a list of the domains that have been in operation for the past several years and are generally accepted by all:

• .edu -- educational site (usually a university or college)
• .com -- commercial business site
• .gov -- U.S. governmental/non-military site
• .mil -- U.S. military sites and agencies
• .net -- networks, internet service providers, organizations
• .org -- U.S. non-profit organizations and others

In mid November 2000, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) voted to accept an additional seven new suffixes, which are already in operation or preparing to come into operation:

• .aero -- restricted use by air transportation industry
• .biz -- general use by businesses
• .coop -- restricted use by cooperatives
• .info -- general use by both commercial and non-commercial sites
• .museum -- restricted use by museums
• .name -- general use by individuals
• .pro -- restricted use by certified professionals and professional entities

NOTE: Because the Internet was created in this country, "US" was not originally assigned to U.S. domain names; however, it is used to designate state and local government hosts, including many public schools. Other countries have their own two letter codes as the final part of their domain names, e.g., .uk for United Kingdom; .ca for Canada; .fr for France, etc.

For a list of Internet Country Codes, go to: ISO's list of Country Codes

DETERMINING PAGE AUTHORSHIP

You can tell a lot about the authenticity of a page by finding out all you can about its author/publisher.

Ask yourself this: Who is responsible for the page you are accessing? Is it a governmental agency or other official source? A university? A business, corporation or other commercial interest? An individual? As a rule of thumb, you can generally rely on the GOV and EDU hostnames to present accurate information. The NET, ORG, MIL, and COM domains are more likely to host pages with their own personal or organizational agendas and might require additional verification.

CHECKING THE VITAL INFORMATION

A reputable Web page will usually provide you with the following information:

• Last date page updated
• Mail-to link for questions, comments
• Name, address, telephone number, and email address of page owner

Now ask yourself this: If the page owner is not readily recognizable, does he provide you with credentials or some information on his sources or authority?

CHECKING THE CONTENT

On the Web, each individual can be his/her own publisher, and many are. Don't accept everything you read just because it's printed on a web page. Unlike scholarly books and journal articles, web sites are seldom reviewed or refereed. It's up to you to check for bias and to determine objectivity. Who sponsors the page? The Flat Earth Society? Hmmm ...... Who is linking to the page, and what links to other pages does the page itself maintain?

Look to see if the page owner tells you when the page was last updated. Is the information current? Can it be verified at other, similar sites?

Try to distinguish between promotion, advertising, and serious content. This is getting to be more difficult, as an increasing number of pages must look to commercial support for their continuance.

Watch out for deliberate frauds and hoaxes. Some folks really enjoy playing games on the Web. Take a look at these two Web pages:

The White House http://www.whitehouse.gov

The White House http://www.whitehouse.org

ASSESSING WEB PAGE STABILITY

There is no way to freeze a web page in time. Unlike the print world with its publication dates, editions, ISBN numbers, etc., web pages are fluid. There's no bibliographic control on the Web. The page you cite today may be altered or revised tomorrow, or it might disappear completely. The page owner might or might not acknowledge the changes and, if he relocates the page, might or might not leave a forwarding address.

Try to assess the stability of the pages you reference. Again, one of the best ways to do this is to look closely at the page sponsor, last date updated, and the authority of the author(s).

When you are writing a paper and using web pages as source material, keep a backup of what you find on the Web, (either as a printout or saved to disk) so that you can verify your sources later on if need be.

Yours Truly,
Ferdinand Che

Subject Directories

WHAT ARE SUBJECT DIRECTORIES?

Subject directories, unlike search engines, are created and maintained by human editors, not electronic spiders or robots. The editors review and select sites for inclusion in their directories on the basis of previously determined selection criteria. The resources they list are usually annotated. Directories tend to be smaller than search engine databases, typically indexing only the home page or top level pages of a site. They may include a search engine for searching their own directory (or the web, if a directory search yields unsatisfactory or no results.)

HOW DO SUBJECT DIRECTORIES WORK?

When you initiate a keyword search of a directory's contents, the directory attempts to match your keywords and phrases with those in its written descriptions. Subject directories come in assorted flavors. There are general directories, academic directories, commercial directories, portals and now, vortals. Portals are directories that have been created or taken over by commercial interests and then reconfigured to act as gateways to the web. These portal sites not only link to popular subject categories, they also offer additional services such as email, current news, stock quotes, travel information and maps. Vortals, or vertical portals, (See Lesson 4 for examples) are subject-specific directories, as opposed to the broader, more generalized smorgasbord of subjects and other links commonly found in portals.

NOTE: Today, the line between subject directories and search engines is blurring. Most subject directories have partnered with search engines to query their databases and search the web for additional sources, while search engines are acquiring subject directories or creating their own.

Two subject directories have partnered with and developed their own search engines that are very powerful. You will see them listed in both the search engine and the subject directory categories. Check out the different engine and directory "looks" below:

MSN Subject Directory
MSN Search Engine

Yahoo! Subject Directory
Yahoo! Search Engine

WHAT ARE THE PROS AND CONS OF SUBJECT DIRECTORIES?

PROS:
Directory editors typically organize directories hierarchically into browsable subject categories and sub-categories. When you're clicking through several subject layers to get to an actual Web page, this kind of organization may appear cumbersome, but it is also the directory's strength. Because of the human oversight maintained in subject directories, they have the capability of delivering a higher quality of content.

They may also provide fewer results out of context than search engines.

CONS:
Unlike search engines, most directories do not compile databases of their own. Instead of storing pages, they point to them. This situation sometimes creates problems because, once accepted for inclusion in a directory, the Web page could change content and the editors might not realize it. The directory might continue to point to a page that has been moved or that no longer exists.

Dead links are a real problem for subject directories, as is a perceived bias toward e-commerce sites.

WHEN DO YOU USE SUBJECT DIRECTORIES?

Like the yellow pages of a telephone book, subject directories are best for browsing and for searches of a more general nature. They are good sources for information on popular topics, organizations, commercial sites and products. When you'd like to see what kind of information is available on the Web in a particular field or area of interest, go to a directory and browse through the subject categories.

---

EXAMPLES OF SUBJECT DIRECTORIES AND PORTALS :

Subject Directories

• Beaucoup
• LookSmart
• Open Directory Project

Portals (subject directories serving as home pages)

• Excite
• MSN directory
• Netscape
• Yahoo! directory

I bet you should be driving towards a masters in internet search by now, why not?

Yours Truly,
Ferdinand Che.

Metasearch Engines

WHAT ARE METASEARCH ENGINES?

Metasearch engines do not crawl the web compiling their own searchable databases. Instead, they search the databases of multiple sets of individual search engines simultaneously, from a single site and using the same interface. Metasearchers provide a quick way of finding out which engines are retrieving the best results for you in your search.

HOW DO METASEARCHERS DISPLAY THEIR RESULTS?

Metasearch engines present the results of their searches in one of two ways:

1. Single List. Most metasearchers display multiple-engine search results in a single merged list, from which duplicate entries have been removed.
   
2. Multiple Lists. Some metasearchers do not collate multiple-engine search results but display them instead in separate lists as they are received from each engine. Duplicate entries may appear.

WHAT ARE THE PROS AND CONS OF METASEARCHERS?

PROS:
Metasearch engines can give you a fair picture of what's available across the Web and where it can be found.

Metasearchers are very fast.

CONS:
More and more, metasearch engines seem to be casting smaller nets by relying on subject directories and pay-per-click engines for their Web results.

Metasearch engines don't offer the "salad bar" of search options that individual search engines do. When you initiate a keyword or phrase search on a metasearch engine, you are usually at its mercy as far as how the search is configured and conducted.

Although metasearch engines query a number of individual search engines, not enough query Google, one of the largest and most popular search engines on the Web. (Note: Dogpile and Mamma both search Google)

WHEN DO YOU USE METASEARCH ENGINES?

Use metasearchers when you are in a hurry. Metasearch engines are useful in obtaining a quick overview on a subject and/or unique term.

Use metasearchers when you are conducting a relatively simple search and also when you are not having any luck pulling up documents in your search.

EXAMPLES OF METASEARCH ENGINES:

• Dogpile
• Mamma
• Vivisimo

Do you know what subject directories are? Visit this blog agsin.

Yours Truly,
Ferdinand Che

About Search Engines

WHAT ARE SEARCH ENGINES?

Search engines are huge databases of web page files that have been assembled automatically by machine.

There are two types of search engines:

1. Individual. Individual search engines compile their own searchable databases on the web.
2. Meta. Metasearchers do not compile databases. Instead, they search the databases of multiple sets of individual engines simultaneously (see Lesson 2).

HOW DO SEARCH ENGINES WORK?

Search engines compile their databases by employing "spiders" or "robots" ("bots") to crawl through web space from link to link, identifying and perusing pages. Sites with no links to other pages may be missed by spiders altogether. Once the spiders get to a web site, they typically index most of the words on the publicly available pages at the site. Web page owners may submit their URLs to search engines for "crawling" and eventual inclusion in their databases.

Whenever you search the web using a search engine, you're asking the engine to scan its index of sites and match your keywords and phrases with those in the texts of documents within the engine's database.

It is important to remember that when you are using a search engine, you are NOT searching the entire web as it exists at this moment. You are actually searching a portion of the web, captured in a fixed index created at an earlier date.

How much earlier? It's hard to say. Spiders regularly return to the web pages they index to look for changes. When changes occur, the index is updated to reflect the new information. However, the process of updating can take a while, depending upon how often the spiders make their rounds and then, how promptly the information they gather is added to the index. Until a page has been both "spidered" AND "indexed," you won't be able to access the new information.
NOTE: While most search engine indexes are not "up to the minute" current, they have partnered with specialized news databases that are. For late breaking news, look for a "news" tab somewhere on the search engine or directory page. Examples include:

* Google Breaking News
* Yahoo! News

WHAT ARE THE PROS AND CONS OF SEARCH ENGINES?

PROS:
Search engines provide access to a fairly large portion of the publicly available pages on the Web, which itself is growing exponentially (see "How Big Is the Internet?")

Search engines are the best means devised yet for searching the web. Stranded in the middle of this global electronic library of information without either a card catalog or any recognizable structure, how else are you going to find what you're looking for?

CONS:
On the down side, the sheer number of words indexed by search engines increases the likelihood that they will return hundreds of thousands of responses to simple search requests. Remember, they will return lengthy documents in which your keyword appears only once.

Additionally, many of these responses will be irrelevant to your search.

ARE SEARCH ENGINES ALL THE SAME?

Search engines use selected software programs to search their indexes for matching keywords and phrases, presenting their findings to you in some kind of relevance ranking. Although software programs may be similar, no two search engines are exactly the same in terms of size, speed and content; no two search engines use exactly the same ranking schemes, and not every search engine offers you exactly the same search options. Therefore, your search is going to be different on every engine you use. The difference may not be a lot, but it could be significant. Recent estimates put search engine overlap at approximately 60 percent and unique content at around 40 percent.

HOW DO SEARCH ENGINES RANK WEB PAGES?

In ranking web pages, search engines follow a certain set of rules. These may vary from one engine to another. Their goal, of course, is to return the most relevant pages at the top of their lists. To do this, they look for the location and frequency of keywords and phrases in the web page document and, sometimes, in the HTML META tags. They check out the title field and scan the headers and text near the top of the document. Some of them assess popularity by the number of links that are pointing to sites; the more links, the greater the popularity, i.e., value of the page.

WHEN DO YOU USE SEARCH ENGINES?

Search engines are best at finding unique keywords, phrases, quotes, and information buried in the full-text of web pages. Because they index word by word, search engines are also useful in retrieving tons of documents. If you want a wide range of responses to specific queries, use a search engine.
NOTE: Today, the line between search engines and subject directories (see Lesson 3) is blurring. Search engines no longer limit themselves to a search mechanism alone. Across the Web, they are partnering with subject directories, or creating their own directories, and returning results gathered from a variety of other guides and services as well.

EXAMPLES OF INDIVIDUAL SEARCH ENGINES:

* Google
* Ask

EXAMPLES OF SEARCH ENGINES THAT HAVE PARTNERED WITH SUBJECT DIRECTORIES:

* Gigablast
* Yahoo! Search

On the next post, i will be talking to you about Metasearch Engines

Yours Truly,
Ferdinand Che

Great Search Engines

Need information? There are hundreds of search engines out there on the web. . .

Five major "search engines" do stand out, however, for their massive catalogs of information: Google.com and its Amazon.com variant, A9.com, AllTheWeb.com, AskJeeves.com, Vivisimo.com and Dogpile.com.

These five database engines use "spiders" (automated programs) to read thousands of pages per day, and index them for easy finding later.

Three major "search directories" also stand out for their voluminous catalogs: Yahoo's Directory, DMOZ.org, and About.com. Different from search engines, these three search directories use human editors and reader submissions to hand-pick their cataloged content. With human reading being much slower than robot spiders, you can expect search directories to be much smaller than search engines. The human editor element, however, does add the filter of human judgment, which can help cut down the drivel you have to sift through when searching.

So, when it comes to the question, "which search tool is the best?", the real question should perhaps be: "which search tool do you personally prefer?"

Google.com has the least advertising on its screen, and the most indexed content of all the search engines.

DMOZ is slower to load, but it has excellent depth of content.

Vivisimo uses "clustering" to present results in categorized format. About.com has lots of advertising, but has amazing subject matter expertise.

Ask Jeeves, Dogpile, and AllTheWeb have their pros and cons, too.

There are almost 300 other search tool choices not even listed here. Whichever you personally prefer, every one of these search tools contains more content than you or I could ever read in a lifetime! The smart choice, accordingly, would be to test and compare these major search tools for yourself.

Don't settle for one search tool! Use different search engines and directories in combination! Not only do search tools change their appearance every few months, you are also more likely to locate higher-quality web pages when you combine the high volume of spidered content, and the hand-picked reviewing of human editors. Rotate your search tools, avoid the rut of relying on only one search engine, show some perseverance and patience, and you will get good results.

Yours Truly,
Ferdinand Che

Mozilla Firefox vs Internet Explorer

Good: Firefox has a super-small installation (4.9MB), tabbed browsing, multiple shortcut features, integrating pop-up ad blocking, integrated Google search, large viewing area, compatibility with IE shortcuts/ favorites/cookies, clean interface, very user friendly design, and no glaring security holes.

Bad: images load 30% slower than IE; Firefox does not integrate well with Outlook email or Pocket PC Synching; browser plug-ins like Flash and Shockwave require extra user effort to install; some Javascripts will not run in Firefox. Some online banks and other password-protected websites are not designed to allow Firefox users.

Overall: Despite its small flaws, Firefox is an excellent browser that is within a two years of unseating Microsoft IE from its throne.

BACKGROUND

In the mid 1990’s, a heated courtroom battle of Microsoft IE versus Netscape Navigator was waged. After years of legal wrestling, Microsoft triumphed with the permission to bundle its IE browser into its Windows software and distribute it freely. By the sheer inertia of this distribution, 90% of the world now uses Microsoft IE to surf the web.

Netscape, while losing the market share battle, did preserve a spot in the universe by starting the Mozilla Project in 1998, where they published the Netscape source code for open developer use. Within six years, “Firebird” was designed, which has now become “Firefox”, a very respectable browser that will give Microsoft a run for its money.

Now, Firefox is available as free software at www.mozilla.org and at www.getfirefox.com

FIREFOX PROS

1. The Mozilla Firefox browser is amazingly lean. At just over 4.9MB to download and install, Firefox does not suffer from being overweight (unlike Microsoft IE6 at 80MB). The 4.9MB Firefox install does not include plug-ins like Java Virtual Machine, Flash Player, Quicktime and Shockwave, but those features can be added through 30 minutes of user effort.

2. Firefox supports plenty of user shortcuts and keystrokes. Both novices and power users will like the helpful little perks like “Type Ahead”, CTRL-enter to complete URLs, and CTRL-T to launch new tabs. In many ways, it feels like Microsoft IE, and IE users will find it easy to switch to Firefox.

3. Integrated pop-up blocking! Yes, Firefox will shut down those pesky advertisements for you. No need to install 3rd party software…just set your Firefox options in your Tools menu to prevent pop-ups.

4. Power User Feature: Firefox can prevent annoying Javascript code from hiding your status bar, resizing or moving your window.

5. Larger viewing area than IE. With smaller toolbars, Firefox can fit nearly 10% more surface area onto your monitor.

6. Nifty bookmarking features for researchers! It is possible to bookmark and folder-organize multiple tabs at once.

THE BEST FEATURE OF FIREFOX

Tabbed browsing. This is the most elegant and efficient way to run multiple windows at once. Instead of loading another 40MB of code into your computer's memory, each new "tab" window in Firefox adds less than 1MB of overhead load. With a simple press of keystroke CTRL-T, you can have a Google window, a Hotmail window, a news window, an Icebergradio.com window, and multiple other browsing screens. This is particularly useful for people on dial-up who want to multi-task while waiting for slow pages. Microsoft IE should take a lesson from this extremely useful tabbed design.

FIREFOX DOWNSIDES

As much as Firefox is a great tool, there are some small deficiencies in this application. Gratefully, these deficiencies will be quite minor for most users, and with impending improvements, these glitches will likely be repaired within the next 12 to 18 months.

1. Images inconsistently load slower than IE. While Internet Explorer will render most web pages quickly on DSL or cable bandwidth, Firefox seems to intermittently take 30% to 100% longer to render the same graphics. This is not a consistent flaw; it seems unique to whichever website you are visiting.

2. Firefox does not integrate well with Outlook or Outlook express email. With little annoying things like viewing HTML email, or launching links from a message, Firefox does not respond quickly, and often fails to respond at all.

3. Firefox also fails to integrate with Pocket PC Windows and USB cradle synching. Although only a small percentage of users actually download web calendars and web mail into their Pocket PC’s, that small percentage will be frustrated until Firefox fixes this.

4. Firefox will not render the same web page format and styles that IE will. For example: where you would normally see a page's black table outline in IE, you will see a blurred grey outline in Firefox. Not a show-stopper, but annoying, especially to web developers.

5. Plug-Ins do not auto-install as easily as IE. To add Flash player, Shockwave, Quicktime, and Java Virtual Machine, Firefox users need to manually search and download/install these tools. Sometimes, you will even need to tweak the installs using Firefox Tools menu.

6. Power User Complaint: intermittently, HTML form buttons fail to respond to the keyboard enter button in Firefox. For example: to log into one of my online bank accounts, I normally enter my account number and PIN, and press enter to submit. In Firefox, I need to switch to my mouse to press submit. This is a small peeve for those of us who love our keyboards.

PERSONAL COMMENTS

I must confess, despite my devout loyalty to Microsoft's IE browser, I absolutely adore Firefox! It's clean, fast, similar enough to IE for immediate transition, and better in many little aspects. I am particularly fond of the tabbed pages, group bookmarking, and personal skin options. For repetitive browsing, searching, and viewing 90% of web pages, Mozilla’s Firefox is now my preferred choice.

Most significantly: I prefer to do online financial transactions in Firefox instead of IE. Firefox is much more reliable for encrypting my passwords and protecting my online PINS.

Granted, there are times I need to switch back to IE: viewing my web calendars, synching my Pocket PC, and viewing a select few web pages that render better in IE. But outside of these few exceptions, I am now a Firefox convert.

SUMMARY

Whether you are loyal to IE, Opera, Safari, Mozilla, or Netscape, the imperfect-but-lean Firefox is a highly recommended alternative. With so many helpful little features like pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing, horizontal bookmarks, and integrated Google, Mozilla's Firefox is working hard to win its users affection. By focusing on the most-appreciated browsing features, the Mozilla developers are giving users a slick and lean alternative to the bloated-and-insecure Microsoft IE browser.

Is this the end of Microsoft IE? No, not by a long shot, but this is the first really serious threat to IE's market share, and perhaps the beginning of Browser War II. As of this writing, an estimated 35 million users have switched from IE to Firefox, or roughly 15% of the Internet public. Accordingly Microsoft's market share has dropped from 90% to less than 80% since Firefox was released.

Try Firefox out for yourself. Maybe you'll see why so many users are switching over.

Yours Truly,
Ferdinand Che

Using Internet Explorer

Part A - Internet Explorer Window Control

Tip A.1) Switch to Full Screen for better web page viewing. This feature will hide the menu bar, toolbars, and address bar at the top of your screen, and will hide the status bar and taskbar at the bottom of your screen.
Purpose: To make better use of a small screen by hiding items temporarily.
How: Press F11 key to turn Full Screen view on and off.

Tip A.2) Hide and show the toolbars you prefer. This feature will allow you to choose which of three common button rows you can display across the top of your screen: standard buttons, address bar, and links.
Purpose: For personal preference, you can hide/show navigation controls at the top of your screen.
How: Right-click on any toolbutton or menu command at top of screen.
A shortcut menu will appear. Simply left click on what you wish to hide or show.

Tip A.3) Customize your toolbuttons to be large or small, with or without text.
Purpose: Personal preference for experienced users... they can hide explanations of buttons that they already understand.
How: Right-click on any toolbutton or menu command at top of screen. In the shortcut menu, choose customize. Then try small icons and no text labels.

Tip A.4) Choose your default font size for easier reading. Yes, you can control about 75% of the font sizes you see on the Web. If your vision prefers it, you can crank up the font size for easier reading.
Purpose: Good for people who need eyeglasses, or for people with small monitor settings.
How: click View menu, Text Size. Choose the Larger or Smaller font sizes until you can easily read the web page. Medium is common.
Note: web pages that use "style" formats or Flash or graphic fonts will not be affected by this command. Only those web pages that use regular HTML body text.

Tip A.5) Customize the IE Explorer Bar on the side of your screen to show your favorite search tools.
Purpose: Personal preference technique for navigating and searching.
How: first display the Explorer Bar by clicking View menu, Explorer Bar, Search. Once the bar is displayed at the side of the screen, click Customize, and then choose your favorite search tools to display in the bar. Use the X button to close the Explorer Bar.


Part B - Power User Tips for Opening web pages in IE5/6

Tip B.1) You never have to type the http:// or https:// prefix!
Purpose: Save yourself typing those obnoxious http letters! This peculiar acronym is really just an annotation... it displays that Hypertext Transfer Protocol language is being used to transmit your web pages. Since IE web browser already assumes this protocol by default, there is no need for you to actually type those prefix letters to open a page.
How: This technique is actually more easy than it sounds.

Let's break it down into three small steps...

The example is to visit Queen Elizabeth at http://www.royal.gov.uk/
Step 1: click or drag select (highlight) the entire URL address in the address bar, including the http:// prefix. The entire text string should turn reversed blue-white color.
Step 2: Without pressing delete or backspace, and without typing the protocol prefix, just type your URL directly over top of the blue-white block. This is called "typing replaces selection". In this case, you would type: www.royal.gov.uk
Step 3: Press enter to send your URL command to the browser. At this time, IE will type in the http:// prefix for you, and you have erased an old URL and typed a new URL all in a single motion!

Tip B.2) This is an even better tip: if you are going to an http://www.something.com address, IE will type the http://www. and the .com for you!For example. If you type about and press CTRL-Enter, the IE browser will type http://www.about.com for you! If you type darwinawards and press CTRL-Enter, then IE browser will type http://www.darwinawards.com for you!
Purpose: Save yourself even more typing by using the CTRL-Enter keystroke to open a .com web page.
How: In your URL address bar, click or drag-select (highlight) all the URL text until it turns reversed blue-white. Type the middle portion of your desired www.middleportion.com URL. Press CTRL-Enter (hold one of the two CTRL keys, then poke the Enter key.) Voila!
Warning 1: this CTRL-Enter trick only works for www.something.com commercial addresses. If you want to go a .ca or .net or .au or .uk address, you will have to manually type that.
Warning 2: The Autocomplete setting must be enabled in your browser options. Check this by clicking Tools menu, Internet Options, Content tab, Autocomplete..., Web Addresses.

Tip B.3)You can use a quick keystroke to select-highlight your IE address bar!
Purpose: save yourself having to reach for the mouse to type a new URL.
How: Press ALT-D on your keyboard. (Hold one of the ALT keys, and poke the letter D). This should instantly block the whole address bar in reversed blue-white color for you! A kind of awkward keystroke motion, but a very helpful habit once you learn it!

This was just quick, short and simple. I hope you enjoyed it.

Yours Truly,
Ferdinand Che

Plugins for Internet Users

What are Internet Plug-ins?

While a plain web browser allows you to view static HTML pages, Plug-ins are optional software additions that enhance and/or add functionality to a web browser. This means that above and beyond reading a basic web page, plug-ins let you watch Internet movies and animation, hear sound and music, read special Adobe documents, play online games, and do 3-D interaction.

What Plug-ins I should have?

Although new plug-in software is released every week, there are about 12 key plug-ins and add-on software that will serve you 99% of the time:

1. Adobe Acrobat Reader (for .pdf files)
2. Java Virtual Machine (JVM to run Java applets)
3. Macromedia Flash Player (to run .swf movies)
4. Macromedia Shockwave Player (to run heavy-duty .swf movies)
5. Real Audio Player (to listen to .ram files)
6. Apple Quicktime (to see 3d Virtual Reality schematics)
7. Windows Media Player (to run a variety of movies and music formats)
8. Windows WinAmp (to play downloaded .mp3 and .wav files)
9. "Pop-Up Killer" software (to reduce the annoying advertisements)
10. Anti Virus software
11. Optional browser toolbars, like Google toolbar, Yahoo toolbar, or StumleUpon toolbar
12. WinZip (to compress/decompress downloaded files)
(although technically not plug-ins, WinZip and AV software work as silent partners to help you download web files, and to prevent nasty programs from infecting your computer)

What do these Plug-Ins Do For Me?

Anytime you visit a web page that includes more than simple HTML content, you are likely to need at least one plug-in.

For example, on a daily basis, Flash Player is perhaps the most needed plug-in. 75% of the animated advertisements you see online are Flash .swf “movies” (Shockwave format). Here is one Flash movie example: Any Given Sunday.

The second most common plug-in need is for Adobe Acrobat Reader .pdf (Portable Document Format) viewing. Most government forms, online application forms, and a multitude of other documents use .pdf format on the Web.

The third most common plug-in would be a movie/audio player to run .mov, .mp3, .wav, .au, and .avi files. Windows Media Player is perhaps the most popular for this purpose, but you can use a multitude of other movie/audio choices.

The fourth most common enhancement to get is WinZip, which allows you to download large files in “compressed” (shrunken file size) .zip format, and then expand the compressed files for full use on your computer. This is the smartest tool for sending either large files, or batches of many smaller files. Technically, WinZip is not a "plug-in", but it certainly is recommended as a web browsing partner tool.

Depending on your browser habits, the likely fifth-most-common plug-in need would be for Java Virtual Machine (JVM). The JVM allows you to run online games and online program “applets” that are written in the Java programming language. Here are some sample Java game applets.

How do I find these Internet plug-ins?

80% of the time, the plug-ins will find you! This means that most web pages requiring plug-in software will alert you if the particular plug-in is missing from your computer. The browser will then either present you with a link to, or take you directly to the webpage where the needed plug-in can be found and installed from.

If you have the most current version of the browser, some plug-ins will be already built-in.

The “hard way” of finding the plug-ins is to manually search for them via the search engines such as Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc. In most cases you will not need to do that. Do be careful when downloading plug-ins though. Some contain so-called “Spyware” (which will be covered in a separate article) and can be detrimental to your computer’s health.

How do I install plug-ins?

When you visit a website that has some “extras” to present to you, you will be informed that the browser needs you to install something.

You will then be given directions on what to do to complete the installation. In most cases, these installations are very easy and consist of you clicking on a button, or two. Typically, you might be asked to accept the “license agreement”, or click a “Next” or an “OK” button once or twice, and the installation will be underway.

Sometimes, however, you might be asked if you want to proceed with the immediate installation, or save the installer file somewhere on your computer, for installation at a later time. The recommended course of action would be to save the file, especially if it is rather large, and your connection is via 56K (or less) modem. The most common place to save the installer file is on your Desktop; it will be easy to find, you will only need it once, and you can delete it afterwards. It is also a good idea to reboot the computer after installing anything.

Where do I go to manually get plug-ins?

Yahoo Toolbar – recommended for killing popup ads and for enhanced web browsing:
http://toolbar.yahoo.com/

Acrobat – for viewing of PDF files:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Shockwave - for animation, games and multimedia files:
http://sdc.shockwave.com/shockwave/download/frameset.fhtml?

Flash - for animation, games and navigation:
http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash

Java VM – for running Java applets such as an ICQ:
http://www.virtualmachine.tk/
or here:
http://java-virtual-machine.net/download.html

Quicktime – for watching files such as movie trailers:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

Real Player – also used to watch video on the Net:
http://www.real.com/player/

Media Player - yet another format used for video on the net:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/default.asp

Pop-up Window Killers - to reduce annoying advertising:
http://download.com.com/sort/3120-2001-0-1-3.html?qt=pop+up+killer&ca=2001

Not technically plug-ins but nice-to-have utilities:

WinZip - to uncompress .zip files (the Evaluation copy is free for 30 days, then is $29 USD after that): http://www.winzip.com/download.htm

Winamp - to play .mp3 and .wav files you may download:
http://www.winamp.com/player/

Anti-Virus - to help prevent nasty programs infecting your computer:
http://download.com.com/sort/3120-2001-0-1-4.html?qt=anti-virus&ca=2001

I assure you these plug-ins and utilities will enhance your brwosing experience.

Yours Truly,
Ferdinand Che

Are You Ready for the Internet?

What you need before you dive the Internet!

There's much more to this than just having a computer.

"Surfing the Internet" is a misleading metaphor. It is really more like "Scuba Diving the Internet", with all the complexities of equipment, navigation theory, and understanding the wildlife and the terrain.

Here, we will focus on equipment needed to "successfully dive the Net"! Note that both mandatory and optional equipment is listed below. Please also note that if you browse the Internet from work, many of these items will be provided for you, provided you adhere to professional ethics when using the Internet at the office.


Internet User's Equipment Checklist

1. Computer with Internet connection. PC or MacIntosh is fine.
You can also browse the Net with a Pocket PC, a WebTV, or even a Citrix or Sparc workstation, if it is setup correctly. As you might know, there are coffee shop "Internet Cafes" that will rent usage of connected computers to you.

2. Internet account with a connection provider. Often called "ISP" (Internet Service Provider), these are usually phone or cable companies that charge you $20 to $80 USD a month for Internet access. Note: if you browse the Net from work, your company eats this cost as part of their operations. They also will have rules for you to follow. If you browse from an Internet Cafe, you will need to pay perhaps $6 USD per hour.

3. Internet browser software. The most popular is called Internet Explorer version 6 ("IE"). The the second most common browser is Mozilla Firefox. Other browser choices include: AOL, Opera, and Netscape.

4. Anti-virus software. Symantec/Norton or McAffee are the two most common. These will help defend you against nasty programs that will erase parts of your hard drive.

5. Email software. You can choose from the very popular Outlook or Outlook Express, less-common email softwares like Eudora or Groupwise, or the free "web-mail" offered by Yahoo or Hotmail or Canada.com.

6. Plug-In software. This is a big topic in its own right, but here are the most-common you will need: Java Virtual Machine, Macromedia Flash Player, Windows Media Player, Real Audio music player, Apple Quick Time.

7. Optional: stereo speakers, microphone, and webcam. These hardware devices will allow you to hear game sounds, do Internet telephoning, and send images to your friends and family.

8. Optional: Anti-Spam software.

9. Optional: Censorware, to help police what your kids can see.

10. Optional: graphic software, so you can edit pictures you like.

11. Optional: printer.

12. Optional: wheel mouse, to quickly scroll pages up and down.

As you can see, some are optional. You can still do without some of the necesary one, but i am quite sure you want the best for yourself.

Yours Truly,
Ferdinand Che

An Overview of the Internet

The Frustrations of Not Understanding the Internet

80% of the cyber world uses the Internet without formal training. By using the trial-and-error technique of "fumbling successfully", so many people fumble their way through searching, emailing, downloading, blogging, chatting, and posting.

Granted, many self-taught users manage to fumble through email and Web page searching using trial-and-error, but they are destined to have five negative experiences every time they go online:

1. Self-taught users spend their online time without a feeling of true confidence or clear direction. Like watching television without a TV guide, people will find Internet destinations that interest them, but more through random chance than through directed choice.

2. Self-taught users cultivate bad Internet user habits. Unnecessary URL typing, cluttered bookmarks, confining oneself to a single search tool, using only one browser window, failing to install the latest plug- ins, mistakenly trusting spam email... all of these lead to inefficient browsing and wasted hours of searching and fumbling.

3. Self-taught users will unwittingly misrepresent themselves in email and online conversations. Obscure cultural points like "Netiquette", "emoticons", "flaming", use of abbreviations like "RTFM", lack of non-verbal cues, and blind carbon copy are some of the important nuances that elude most self-taught users.

4. Self-taught users experience frustration when the unknown overwhelms them. They don't understand things like pop-ups, unsubscribing, acronyms, Zip, peer-sharing, and URLs. As a result, a feeling of "being left out" festers, and confidence evaporates.

5. Worst of all: self-taught users miss out on so many Internet experiences because they do not know the full scope of available choices. Often called "unknown-unknowns", these are the great discoveries that are sitting at your fingertips, but are hidden from you because of ignorance. Things like dynamic data-driven news pages, Push- and Pull-Technology, mailing lists, special interest forums, online financial trading, trip planning, FTP, freeware, consumer reviews, peer sharing, academic archives, and online communities... these are tremendous opportunities that are hidden beneath a thin veil of obscurity.

Sadly, these five experiences are daily for 80% of the Internet public.

Your Guide to Internet for Beginners

"But no one has taken the time to explain the Internet to me."

"I don't have the time or money to take a formal training course on the Internet."

"I don't have the patience to study the Internet. Just tell me how to get around."

These are some of the common reasons why people choose to surf and email with 1% knowledge and 99% ignorance. Sure enough, it is possible to get by this way. But with a simple investment of a couple hours of guided study, you don't have to settle for 1% knowledge of the Internet. Even one day of formal training is enough to quadruple a beginner's knowledge of the Internet. With a few invested weekends and evenings, a person can easily become a confident intermediate user.

Formally learning the Internet is about small steps, good guidance, and practice.

Consider the analogy of learning to scuba dive. A novice diver could rent equipment and try learning to dive on his own, without professional guidance. Beyond the obvious physical hazards involved, the self-taught scuba diver is destined for incomplete knowledge, bad habits, and moderate confidence at best. His experience of the ocean will be confined to those random techniques and places he has been lucky enough to stumble upon. He will be unable to fully explain scuba diving to other beginners, and if he tries, he will pass his bad habits onto them.

The same learning model can be applied to becoming a lifelong Internet user. Do you want to save a few hours right now by diving in and figuring it for yourself? Do you want to trust the flawed guidance of another self-taught user? Or is this important enough to find a certified divemaster and invest in some formal training?

Here at About Internet For Beginners, we are your divemasters in the ocean of the Internet. We know the equipment, the challenges, the choices, the techniques that work, and the traps to avoid. We know how to defend against predators, how to find the beautiful destinations, and how to enjoy the company of other Internet divers.

Like a good diving school, About Internet For Beginners is dedicated to every beginning and intermediate user who wants to confidently navigate the Internet and its thousands of details. Whether you are a successful self-taught user, a frustrated parent who has learned a few web tricks from the kids, or a brand new beginner who wants fundamental guidance, then this site is for you.

Moreover, it doesn't cost anything to become a student at this web site. Internet knowledge that would normally cost hundreds of dollars at your local college or bookstore is absolutely free here. Because we get our advertisers to pay for this knowledge web site, it is absolutely free for you to use.

Yes, learning to "dive the Internet" is not only much safer than scuba diving, it will cost you nothing more than time and a little personal effort.
Patient versus Impatient Learning Paths for Beginners


OK. So you've decided you want to invest some time in formal Internet training. Instead of taking a course at your local college, you've chosen to stay online and read About Internet tutorials. The price is definitely right, and you can learn at home while sitting in your bathrobe.

So, where does a new Internet user start? What order of events is the best tutorial way to get started on a lifelong Internet career?

Well, the best learning technique is unique to you. Some learners are impatient and want to get quick guiding advice only, combined with lots of hands-on practice. Other people prefer long detailed explanations before doing hands-on. Most people are somewhere in between, with a vague idea of what they want to learn…to be continued

Internet Basics

Sometime in the mid 1960’s, during the Cold War, it became apparent that there was a need for a bombproof communications system. A concept was devised to link computers together throughout the country. With such a system in place large sections of the country could be nuked and messages could still get through.

In the beginning, only government “think tanks” and a few universities were linked. Basically the Internet was an emergency military communications system operated by the Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA). The whole operation was referred to as ARPANET.

In time, ARPANET computers were installed at every university in the United States that had defense related funding. Gradually, the Internet had gone from a military pipeline to a communications tool for scientists. As more scholars came online, the administration of the system transferred from ARPA to the National Science Foundation.

Years later, businesses began using the Internet and the administrative responsibilities were once again transferred.

At this time no one party “operates” the Internet, there are several entities that “oversee” the system and the protocols that are involved.

The speed of the Internet has changed the way people receive information. It combines the immediacy of broadcast with the in-depth coverage of newspapers…making it a perfect source for news and weather information.

Internet usage is at an all time high. Almost 100 million U.S. adults are now going online every month, according to New York-based Mediamark Research. That’s half of American adults and a 27 percent increase over 1999 in the number who surf the Web.

There also appears to be a continuing gender shift in the number of American adults going online. In early 2000, Mediamark reported the milestone that women for the first time ever accounted for half of the online adult population. Now 51 percent of U.S. surfers - some 50.6 million - are women.

There are several ways to access the Internet. Learn about the options that are available to you.

How the Internet Works

Computer for the purpose of this example let’s say that you want to send a file to a friend who lives on the opposite side of the country. You select the file that you friend wants and you send it to him via email. Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) prepares the data to be sent and received. TCP/IP ensures that a Macintosh network can exchange data with a Windows, or a Unix network, and vice-versa.

The file that you are sending does not travel to your friends computer directly, or even in a single continuous stream. The file you are sending gets broken up into separate data packets. The Internet Protocol side of TCP/IP labels each packet with the unique Internet address, or IP address of your friends computer. Since these packets will travel separate routes, some arriving sooner than others, the Transmission Control Protocol side of TCP/IP assigns a sequence number to each of packets. These sequence numbers will tell the TCP/IP in your friends computer how to reassemble the packets once he receives them. Amazingly, the complicated process of TCP/IP takes place in a matter of milliseconds.

The packets are then sent from one “router” to the next. Each router reads the IP address of the packet and decides which path will be the fastest. Since the traffic on these paths is constantly changing each packet may be sent a different way.

The packets are then sent from one “router” to the next. Each router reads the IP address of the packet and decides which path will be the fastest. Since the traffic on these paths is constantly changing each packet may be sent a different way.

It is possible to discover the paths between routers using a utility known as Traceroute. Using your favorite search engine, type in “traceroute” to find different Web sites hosting it.

Also, check out the Internet Traffic Report to find out how much global Internet traffic there is at this moment…and where the “bottlenecks” are. This information may not useful to you…but it’s interesting! The Internet Traffic Report monitors the flow of data around the world. It then displays a value between zero and 100. Higher values indicate faster and more reliable connections. This information may not useful to you…but it’s interesting! The Internet Traffic Report monitors the flow of data around the world. It then displays a value between zero and 100. Higher values indicate faster and more reliable connections.

Internet Access

AOL logoRegardless if you use the Internet for work or online shopping from home your choice for an Internet Service Provider is important. Your ISP can mean the difference between a great experience and a frustrating one.

There are nearly 7,000 ISPs in the United States alone. Some are massive telecommunications conglomerates with user populations larger than many nations. Others are mom-and-pop operations that know every customer by first name.

How do you decide whether to use a traditional online service or an Internet service provider? Figuring out which is best for you involves asking the right questions, of both yourself and your provider.

The online services connect you to the Internet, so do ISPs. The big difference between the two is “content.” The online services provide proprietary content…and lots of it. Most ISPs provide very little original content, you must venture out yourself (onto the Web, Usenet, ect…) and find it.

You will probably discover that an ISP can provide you with just as good of service, or better, at the same price or less.

Not all ISPs are created equally. Some are very good, some are very bad. Here are some questions that you should ask of any potential ISP before you sign on the bottom line:

What’s the cost? This may not be the most important factor but it’s a good place to start. Most ISPs charge around $20 a month. If you shop around you may find one for around $10 a month. Broadband cable may cost as much as $50 a month.

Do they offer discounts if you prepay the entire year upfront? (This is a good option, providing that it fits into your budget, if you choose a good ISP. It’s a bad option if the ISP turns out to be less than desirable.)

What modem speed do they support? Broadband? DSL? Dial-up? A good ISP will support 56K. You may not have 56K modem yourself but this will provide some indication of the commitment that this ISP is willing to make.

Do they offer a free trial? Try-before-you-buy is always a good thing.

What’s the ratio of modems to users? 6 to 8 users per modem is quite acceptable. Find out what number you would dial in on…and try it a few times.

Does your call through or do you receive busy signals?

How good is the customer support? Some will provide customer support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week…with a “800″ number. Most aren’ quite that good. Call their customer support number a few times before you decide to sign up. Take it as a bad sign if you frequently get a busy signal.

Do they charge a “setup” fee? Some do…most don’t. If you live in a city with many ISPs find one that doesn’t charge you for the privilege of bring your business to them.

There are a few of ways to find Internet Service Providers in your area. We recommend Find An ISP. They list Internet Service Providers by city.

You may also wish to check out The List. They have a large listing of ISPs broken down by area code.

You can also check your local phone book.

Yours truly,
Ferdinand Che.

Internet FAQs and Answers

The following questions are answered in this post.

• Who invented the Internet?
• Why was the Internet invented?
• Who invented the World Wide Web?
• Why was the World Wide Web invented?
• When was the World Wide Web invented?
• Where was the World Wide Web invented?
• Did the World Wide Web drive the growth of the Internet?
• What was the first web browser?
• What was the first web site?
• What will the Web be like in the future?

Who invented the Internet?

No one person invented the Internet as we know it today. However, certain major figures contributed major breakthroughs:

Leonard Kleinrock was the first to publish a paper about the idea of packet switching, which is essential to the Internet. He did so in 1961. Packet switching is the idea that packets of data can be "routed" from one place to another based on address information carried in the data, much like the address on a letter. Packet switching replaces the older concept of "circuit switching," in which an actual electrical circuit is established all the way from the source to the destination. Circuit switching was the idea behind traditional telephone exchanges.

Why Packet Switching Matters

The big advantage of packet switching: a physical connection can carry packets for many different purposes at the same time, depending on how heavy the traffic is. This is much more efficient than tying up a physical connection for the entire duration of a phone call. And for services like the World Wide Web, where traffic comes in bursts, it's essential.

What if Google needed a separate modem and phone line to talk to every user, like an old-fashioned BBS (Bulletin Board System)? Handling millions of users would be prohibitively expensive.

With packet switching, packets destined for thousands or millions of users can share a single physical connection to the Internet.

J.C.R. Licklider was the first to describe an Internet-like worldwide network of computers, in 1962. He called it the "Galactic Network."

Larry G. Roberts created the first functioning long-distance computer networks in 1965 and designed the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), the seed from which the modern Internet grew, in 1966.

Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf invented the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) which moves data on the modern Internet, in 1972 and 1973.

Radia Perlman invented the spanning tree algorithm in the 1980s. Her spanning tree algorithm allows efficient bridging between separate networks. Without a good bridging solution, large-scale networks like the Internet would be impractical.

By 1983, TCP was the standard and ARPANET began to resemble the modern Internet in many respects. The ARPANET itself was taken out of commission in 1990. Most restrictions on commercial Internet traffic ended in 1991, with the last limitations removed in 1995.

For a much more complete history, see the web site of the Internet Society.

Note that the Internet and the World Wide Web are not the same thing. See also: who invented the World Wide Web?, What is the difference between the World Wide Web and the Internet? and See also Hobbes' Internet Timeline for another excellent history of the Internet which includes later important events.

What was the first web site?

The very first web site was nxoc01.cern.ch, and the very first web page was http://nxoc01.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html. That site shut down a long time ago.

Why was the Internet invented?

The Internet evolved from ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), an effort supported by the United States Department of Defense. The developers of ARPANET wanted to make communication between separate computer systems at various universities and research laboratories more convenient. See also Who invented the Internet? and Wikipedia's ARPANET entry.

Contrary to popular belief, while the Internet was designed to survive the loss of various parts of the network, it was never intended to survive a nuclear war. See the Wikipedia ARPANET entry for more information about this urban legend.

Who invented the World Wide Web?

The World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau in 1990. In 1989, while working at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), both men made proposals for hypertext systems. In 1990 they joined forces and wrote a joint proposal in which the term "World Wide Web" is used for the first time (originally without spaces). And in late 1990 and early 1991, Tim Berners-Lee wrote the first web browser.

Berners-Lee went on to found the World Wide Web Consortium, which seeks to standardize and improve World Wide Web-related things such as the HTML markup language in which web pages are written. Cailliau also made ongoing contributions to the Web. Robert Cailliau's a 1995 speech, "A Short History of the Web," is an excellent resource for those who want to understand the history in more detail.

ITim Berners-Lee invented both the HTML markup language and the HTTP protocol used to request and transmit web pages between web servers and web browsers.

Why was the World Wide Web invented?

According to Tim Berners-Lee, he had a big idea in mind when he and Robert Cailliau invented the Web: a "common information space in which we communicate by sharing information."

However, at the time, Berners-Lee and Cailliau had a more immediate goal: to make it easier for nuclear physics researchers to share information.

Both men worked for the CERN physics research facility and wrote independent proposals for a hypertext system to help researchers communicate. And you can still read Tim Berners-Lee's original proposal to his boss at the time, Mike Sendall.

Berners-Lee and Cailliau joined forces and wrote a joint proposal for the "WorldWideWeb" system, justifying it as a single simple interface to all of the information systems used by researchers at CERN and elsewhere.

When was the World Wide Web invented?

Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau's official proposal for the World Wide Web is dated November 12th, 1990. This is the first document that actually uses the term.

In 1989, Berners-Lee and Cailliau had separately presented ideas for a hypertext system for their employer, the CERN nuclear physics research facility in Switzerland.

In early 1991 Berners-Lee wrote the first web browser.

Where was the World Wide Web invented?

The first world wide web was invented at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), in Switzerland.

Did the World Wide Web drive the growth of the Internet?

Yes. Email was already a popular application making inroads into the mainstream before the arrival of of the World Wide Web, and Gopher servers were already beginning to provide a user-friendly means of sharing information. The introduction of web browsers and HTML, however, made Internet publishing accessible to a mass audience and greatly increased demand for Internet access.

The open and free nature of the standards on which the Web is based made it possible for content providers to publish without paying license fees to any one central organization such as America Online, Compuserve or Microsoft. The nonproprietary nature of the Web drove its acceptance by those on the supply side of the equation, in turn generating new demand as new groups of users discovered web sites of interest to them.

What was the first web browser?

Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web together with Robert Cailliau, built the first working prototype in late 1990 and early 1991. That first prototype consisted of a web browser for the NeXTStep operating system. This first web browser, which was named "WorldWideWeb," had a graphical user interface and would be recognizable to most people today as a web browser. However, WorldWideWeb did not support graphics embedded in pages when it was first released.

You can learn more about the original "WorldWideWeb" browser from Tim Berners-Lee himself.

Since WorldWideWeb had a graphical user interface (GUI), it could be called a graphical web browser. However, it did not display web pages with graphics embedded in them That did not happen until the arrival of NCSA Mosaic 2.0.

The first graphical web browser to become truly popular and capture the imagination of the public was NCSA Mosaic. Developed by Marc Andreessen, Jamie Zawinski and others who later went on to create the Netscape browser, NCSA Mosaic was the first to be available for Microsoft Windows, the Macintosh, and the Unix X Window System, which made it possible to bring the web to the average user. The first version appeared in March 1993. The "inline images," such as the boutell.com logo at the top of this page, that are an integral part of almost every web page today were introduced by NCSA Mosaic 2.0, in January of 1994. Mosaic 2.0 also introduced forms.

Netscape is the browser that introduced most all of the remaining major features that define a web browser as we know it. The first version of Netscape appeared in October 1994 under the code name "Mozilla." Netscape 1.0's early beta versions introduced the "progressive rendering" of pages and images, meaning that the page begins to appear and the text can be read even before all of the text and/or images have been completely downloaded. Version 1.1, in March 1995, introduced HTML tables, which are now used in the vast majority of web pages to provide page layout. Version 2.0, in October 1995, introduced frames, Java applets, and JavaScript. Version 2.0 was the last version of Netscape to introduce a major feature of the web as we know it today; later versions improved reliability and stability and introduced features that did not catch on as standards for all browsers. In 1998, Netscape decided to release their browser source code as open source software, and the Mozilla project began.

Microsoft Internet Explorer is by far the most common web browser in use as of this writing. Internet Explorer 1.0, released in August 1995, broke no important new ground in a way that became part of a future standard. Later versions of Internet Explorer quickly caught up; Internet Explorer 3.0 was very close to Netscape 2.0's feature set. In July 1996, Internet Explorer 3.0 beta introduced the first useful implementation of cascading style sheets, which allow better control of the exact appearance of web pages. In April 1997, Internet Explorer 4.0 introduced the first quality implementation of the Document Object Model (DOM), which allows Javascript to modify the appearance and content of a web page after it has been loaded.

What will the Web be like in the future?

If I knew for sure, I'd be out there building it! However, here's a sampling of what I see coming up, in no particular order:

1. Better interactive applications. Web-based applications will get faster, friendlier, and more visually impressive, bcoming able to do things we normally associate with software that comes on a CD. gmail and Google Maps are good examples of how AJAX programming makes web sites more interactive, without forcing the user to wait every time they click a button.

2. Better vector graphics. Although Flash is extremely well-established, Microsoft's Sparkle will challenge Adobe/Macromedia's dominance with superior 3D effects for web pages. However, Sparkle works only with Windows Vista, and Flash works everywhere: Mac, Linux, and old and new Windows computers. SVG, an open standard supported by the W3C industry organization, is also a player here but acceptance of SVG as a Flash alternative has been slow. That may be partly due to its sheer complexity - it's true that Internet Explorer doesn't support it, but even Firefox is still "a long way away" from full SVG support.

In response to the complexity of SVG, the latest versions of both Apple's Safari and the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox support Canvas, a simple way of adding 2D graphics support to JavaScript-enabled web pages. Even though Internet Explorer doesn't support it, the inviting simplicity of Canvas may make it popular with web developers - and if Canvas-only web pages become common, that will drive users to Firefox and Safari... leading Microsoft to do the sensible thing and add Canvas support to Internet Explorer.

3. Open standards for cross-platform video. Unfortunately, right now, Adobe's Flash video format is the only high-quality, low-bandwidth video format that works well across most browsers and operating systems. Since the tools to create Flash video aren't free, there's an opportunity for an open-source solution of similar quality to break in... if users can be convinced to install the player software. Theora is a possible candidate here.

4. Open standards for cross-platform audio. While MP3 is a mostly adequate audio format, it's not really free: Fraunhofer AG charges license fees for the use of MP3-creation software. Ogg Vorbis is a truly open alternative, and some feel it offers superior quality. Again, the big catch is convincing users to install it.

5. Open standards for audio and video control. There are many different players for audio and video, leading to a tangle of different scripting approaches that make it almost impossible for a web designer to offer anything but "play," "pause" and "stop" buttons. Everything else is proprietary or not available to JavaScript at all. Right now, the only way to design an embedded audio player that fits harmoniously into your page design is to design your player in Flash - another closed standard. The time is ripe for a standard set of JavaScript methods, or "verbs," that interact with embedded audio and video players. To "play," "pause" and "stop," we must add "getcurrenttime," "gettotallength," and "setcurrenttime" at a bare minimum. Until that happens, web designers will continue to desert JavaScript in favor of designing media-rich pages in Flash.

6. The "semantic web." Many hope that XML will lead to a Web where web sites can describe their own contents in a way that other programs - not just people - can understand. This leads to useful tools that combine information from many sites. For example....

7. Web service "mash-ups." Many major web sites, such as Amazon and Google, now provide ways to fetch data and use it as part of another site. Amazon, for instance, lets you fetch information about books and use it as part of your own dynamic site design, presumably because it all leads to improved sales. And Google allows both web searches and map displays to be integrated into your own site - under certain terms and conditions. These features are leading to intriguing new applications of the web.

8. XML: important, but not everything. XML is a full-service, overwhelmingly complete way to describe things. But despite the "X" in AJAX, many AJAX applications don't actually rely on XML, because simpler ways of formatting data sent between web browsers and web servers work just fine for many applications. XML will shine primarily as a way of standardizing information that one web site can request from another.

9. Blogging and RSS. Virtually all sites will offer the ability to subscribe to an RSS feed of what's new and interesting on the site. Reading a collected "newspaper" of what's new on your favorite feeds will replace manually visiting web sites every morning... and for many people, it already has.

10. High-quality free content, supported by advertising. Google Adsense and Kontera have made it possible to derive a profit from almost any popular web site - as long as the web site's audience is reading about something that might have a connection to a legitimate product or service.

11. Great stuff from the WHATWG. WHATWG (the Web Hypertext Application Technology working group) is finalizing proposals to improve all web browsers in many ways. Their proposals include Web Forms 2.0, which enhances support for data entry in web pages, Web Applications 1.0, which covers more advanced features such as rich text editing and Canvas 2D graphics, and Web Controls 1.0, which will make it easier to create custom controls in web pages, such as calendars, color selectors, and so on. While Opera and Mozilla/Firefox appear to be the most active participants, the WHATWG had the wisdom to adopt the Canvas feature from Apple's Safari browser as part of Web Applications 1.0, and it is hoped that Microsoft will also participate.

Yours truly,
Ferdinand Che.

History of the Internet

Many people will belief that the Internet was just introduced last decade. No. It was introduced far back in the 50’s though the word “internet” was not put into use during that period.

Below is a Timeline History of the Internet

1957
The USSR launches Sputnik, the first artificial earth satellite. In response, the United States forms the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) within the Department of Defense (DoD) to establish US lead in science and technology applicable to the military.
Backbones: None - Hosts: None

1962
RAND Paul Baran, of the RAND Corporation (a government agency), was commissioned by the U.S. Air Force to do a study on how it could maintain its command and control over its missiles and bombers, after a nuclear attack. This was to be a military research network that could survive a nuclear strike, decentralized so that if any locations (cities) in the U.S. were attacked, the military could still have control of nuclear arms for a counter-attack.

Baran's finished document described several ways to accomplish this. His final proposal was a packet switched network.

"Packet switching is the breaking down of data into datagrams or packets that are labeled to indicate the origin and the destination of the information and the forwarding of these packets from one computer to another computer until the information arrives at its final destination computer. This was crucial to the realization of a computer network. If packets are lost at any given point, the message can be resent by the originator."
Backbones: None - Hosts: None

1968
ARPA awarded the ARPANET contract to BBN. BBN had selected a Honeywell minicomputer as the base on which they would build the switch. The physical network was constructed in 1969, linking four nodes: University of California at Los Angeles, SRI (in Stanford), University of California at Santa Barbara, and University of Utah. The network was wired together via 50 Kbps circuits.
Backbones: 50Kbps ARPANET - Hosts: 4

1972
The first e-mail program was created by Ray Tomlinson of BBN.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was renamed The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (or DARPA)

ARPANET was currently using the Network Control Protocol or NCP to transfer data. This allowed communications between hosts running on the same network.
Backbones: 50Kbps ARPANET - Hosts: 23

1973
Development began on the protocol later to be called TCP/IP, it was developed by a group headed by Vinton Cerf from Stanford and Bob Kahn from DARPA. This new protocol was to allow diverse computer networks to interconnect and communicate with each other.
Backbones: 50Kbps ARPANET - Hosts: 23+

1974
First Use of term Internet by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn in paper on Transmission Control Protocol.
Backbones: 50Kbps ARPANET - Hosts: 23+

1976
Dr. Robert M. Metcalfe develops Ethernet, which allowed coaxial cable to move data extremely fast. This was a crucial component to the development of LANs.

The packet satellite project went into practical use. SATNET, Atlantic packet Satellite network, was born. This network linked the United States with Europe.Surprisingly, it used INTELSAT satellites that were owned by a consortium of countries and not exclusively the United States government.

UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) developed at AT&T Bell Labs and distributed with UNIX one year later.

The Department of Defense began to experiment with the TCP/IP protocol and soon decided to require it for use on ARPANET.
Backbones: 50Kbps ARPANET, plus satellite and radio connections - Hosts: 111+

1979
USENET (the decentralized news group network) was created by Steve Bellovin, a graduate student at University of North Carolina, and programmers Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis. It was based on UUCP.

The Creation of BITNET, by IBM, "Because its Time Network", introduced the "store and forward" network. It was used for email and listservs.
Backbones: 50Kbps ARPANET, plus satellite and radio connections - Hosts: 111+

1981
National Science Foundation created backbone called CSNET 56 Kbps network for institutions without access to ARPANET. Vinton Cerf proposed a plan for an inter-network connection between CSNET and the ARPANET.
Backbones: 50Kbps ARPANET, 56Kbps CSNET, plus satellite and radio connections - Hosts: 213

1983
Internet Activities Board (IAB) was created in 1983.

On January 1st, every machine connected to ARPANET had to use TCP/IP. TCP/IP became the core Internet protocol and replaced NCP entirely.

The University of Wisconsin created Domain Name System (DNS). This allowed packets to be directed to a domain name, which would be translated by the server database into the corresponding IP number. This made it much easier for people to access other servers, because they no longer had to remember numbers.

1984
The ARPANET was divided into two networks: MILNET and ARPANET. MILNET was to serve the needs of the military and ARPANET to support the advanced research component, Department of Defense continued to support both networks.

Upgrade to CSNET was contracted to MCI. New circuits would be T1 lines,1.5 Mbps which is twenty-five times faster than the old 56 Kbps lines. IBM would provide advanced routers and Merit would manage the network. New network was to be called NSFNET (National Science Foundation Network), and old lines were to remain called CSNET.
Backbones: 50Kbps ARPANET, 56Kbps CSNET, plus satellite and radio connections - Hosts: 1024

1985
The National Science Foundation began deploying its new T1 lines, which would be finished by 1988.
Backbones: 50Kbps ARPANET, 56Kbps CSNET, 1.544Mbps (T1) NSFNET, plus satellite and radio connections - Hosts: 1961

1986
The Internet Engineering Task Force or IETF was created to serve as a forum for technical coordination by contractors for DARPA working on ARPANET, US Defense Data Network (DDN), and the Internet core gateway system.
Backbones: 50Kbps ARPANET, 56Kbps CSNET, 1.544Mbps (T1) NSFNET, plus satellite and radio connections - Hosts: 2308

1987
BITNET and CSNET merged to form the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking (CREN), another work of the National Science Foundation.
Backbones: 50Kbps ARPANET, 56Kbps CSNET, 1.544Mbps (T1) NSFNET, plus satellite and radio connections - Hosts: 28,174

1988
Soon after the completion of the T1 NSFNET backbone, traffic increased so quickly that plans immediately began on upgrading the network again.
Backbones: 50Kbps ARPANET, 56Kbps CSNET, 1.544Mbps (T1) NSFNET, plus satellite and radio connections - Hosts: 56,000

1990
(Updated 8/2001) Merit, IBM and MCI formed a not for profit corporation called ANS, Advanced Network & Services, which was to conduct research into high speed networking. It soon came up with the concept of the T3, a 45 Mbps line. NSF quickly adopted the new network and by the end of 1991 all of its sites were connected by this new backbone.

While the T3 lines were being constructed, the Department of Defense disbanded the ARPANET and it was replaced by the NSFNET backbone. The original 50Kbs lines of ARPANET were taken out of service.

Tim Berners-Lee and CERN in Geneva implements a hypertext system to provide efficient information access to the members of the international high-energy physics community.
Backbones: 56Kbps CSNET, 1.544Mbps (T1) NSFNET, plus satellite and radio connections - Hosts: 313,000

1991
CSNET (which consisted of 56Kbps lines) was discontinued having fulfilled its important early role in the provision of academic networking service. A key feature of CREN is that its operational costs are fully met through dues paid by its member organizations.

The NSF established a new network, named NREN, the National Research and Education Network. The purpose of this network is to conduct high speed networking research. It was not to be used as a commercial network, nor was it to be used tosend a lot of the data that the Internet now transfers.
Backbones: Partial 45Mbps (T3) NSFNET, a few private backbones, plus satellite and radio connections - Hosts: 617,000

1992
Internet Society is chartered.

World-Wide Web released by CERN.

NSFNET backbone upgraded to T3 (44.736Mbps)
Backbones: 45Mbps (T3) NSFNET, private interconnected backbones consisting mainly of 56Kbps, 1.544Mbps, plus satellite and radio connections - Hosts: 1,136,000

1993
InterNIC created by NSF to provide specific Internet services: directory and database services (by AT&T), registration services (by Network Solutions Inc.), and information services (by General Atomics/CERFnet).

Marc Andreessen and NCSA and the University of Illinois develops a graphical user interface to the WWW, called "Mosaic for X".
Backbones: 45Mbps (T3) NSFNET, private interconnected backbones consisting mainly of 56Kbps, 1.544Mbps, and 45Mpbs lines, plus satellite and radio connections - Hosts: 2,056,000

1994
No major changes were made to the physical network. The most significant thing that happened was the growth. Many new networks were added to the NSF backbone.Hundreds of thousands of new hosts were added to the INTERNET during this time period.

Pizza Hut offers pizza ordering on its Web page.

First Virtual, the first cyberbank, opens.

ATM (Asynchronous Transmission Mode, 145Mbps) backbone is installed on NSFNET.
Backbones: 145Mbps (ATM) NSFNET, private interconnected backbones consisting mainly of 56Kbps, 1.544Mbps, and 45Mpbs lines, plus satellite and radio connections - Hosts: 3,864,000

1995
The National Science Foundation announced that as of April 30, 1995 it would no longer allow direct access to the NSF backbone. The National Science Foundationcontracted with four companies that would be providers of access to the NSF backbone (Merit). These companies would then sell connections to groups, organizations, and companies.

$50 annual fee is imposed on domains, excluding .edu and .gov domains which are still funded by the National Science Foundation.

1996
Most Internet traffic is carried by backbones of independent ISPs, including MCI, AT&T, Sprint, UUnet, BBN planet, ANS, and more.

Currently the Internet Society, the group that controls the INTERNET, is trying to figure out new TCP/IP to be able to have billions of addresses, rather than the limited system of today. The problem that has arisen is that it is not known how both the old and the new addressing systems will be able to work at the same time during a transition period.

Yours truly,
Ferdinand Che.