Netscape and the WWW

For many of you this is old hat and you do not need to read any further, but for others...read on

Getting Started

If you are on this page you already know how to open Netscape. In the Language Learning Center it will always appear on the desktop and simply double clicking on it will open Netscape and the LLC home page will automatically appear. At this point you may want to go to our World Wide Web & Other Internet Language Resources page and from there to Language Specific WWW Links page. When you see a page name underlined and /or blue , this indicates that the page is linked. Clicking once on this link will automatically open up that page.

Navigating

Navigational buttons will appear on your screen and will help you jump around Netscape. All these buttons can be accessed from the pull down menus as well.

Buttons & Menu Items

Back	sends you back to the last link
Forward	sends you forward if you have been to multiple links
Home	you may select any site as your home site, URL must be entered in the home site in the general preferences folder
Reload	retrieves a fresh copy of the current page
Images	use this if you do not have images automatically loaded
Open	allows you to type in a URL to load; same as using the location box
Print	allows you to print the current page
Find	allows you to search for specific text on the page you are looking at
Stop	allows you to interrupt loading
Location	where you type in a URL or the address of a site
What's New	Netscapes page of new links, sometimes interesting sites may be found that you might not normally look for
What's Cool	these seem to be the newer hot sites
Destinations	sites, news and events in many catagories on the net
Net Search	allows you to select search engines and then conduct a search
People	directories, ie Yellow Pages, Internet directories etc
Software	Netscape software, plugins and other applications

What is the location box?

Between these sets of buttons is a location box. In this appears the address of the page you are on or trying to find. This address is called a URL or Uniform Resorce Locator and usually begins with http:

Location:http//www.hamilton.edu/html/academics/clpllc/hcllc.html

service........host ..................................path

_____... _____________________....... _____________________________

http://www.hamilton.edu/html/academics/clpllc/hcllc.html

Service - http

hypertext transfer protocol

Host - www.hamilton.edu

world wide web+hamilton college+education

Path - academic/clpllc/hcllc.html

academic department+critical language program language learning center+hamilton college language learning center+hypertext mark up language

How can I tell Netscape is working?

Comets will appear across the Netscape icon in the upper right hand corner of your screen. A process bar at the bottom of your screen will also display the status of the loading process.

How can I do an effective search?

Searching the millions of pages can produce good links and a lot of irrelevant ones. The trick is to find pages that are exactly what you are looking for.

Search engines (Alta Vista, Infoseek etc.) vs Subject Guides (Yahoo)

Search Engines - search data bases. Best used to locate specific pieces of information.

Subject Guides - indexes of subjects of relevent information

Basic Search

be specific
use quotation marks around words or phrases that you want to appear directly in the search
use AND to signal the search engine to look for both of the words or phrases
use OR to look for either one
Capitalization gives an exact search for that word capitalized
Phrases - this looks for the phrase in the documents that are being searched
* - the use of the * searches for a group of words with a similiar pattern (ex. sing* would give you searches for sing, singers, singer, singing,singe, single,singular etc.) This can be helpful if you are searching for topics or words that may have multiple spellings (ex. theater and theatre)