The logical place to start learning the computer would be with instructions about using Windows itself. Then to move through Internet, Email and Word. However, this page dealing with the Internet can stand alone, so it is quite acceptable if you prefer to start on this page.
Internet
The internet can be considered like one huge library, a library big enough probably to cover the city of Brisbane if the information were stored in books. Instead, the information which it contains is stored on computers which are designated as "servers" - this is stipulated by the owner of the computer at the time of installing his operating system. These servers are basically very fast computers with huge storage capacity which are connected to the internet at all times. Individuals and businesses can rent space on these servers and also reserve a "domain name" - the basic name of the site (mine is "nobbysplace.com"). Each site is password protected and the owner can put on the site any information at all (which others can view but cannot alter).
No one person or corporation owns or controls the internet. It is simply a network of networks that uses a common set of rules and protocols to link together. There are several groups which oversee and standardise what happens on the Internet, and assign domain names and "IP addresses" (numerical identifiers of every PC on the Internet). Some of these organisations are the National Science Foundation, the Internet Engineering Task Force, ICANN, InterNIC and the Internet Architecture Board. Most of these were created and are controlled by USA interests.
The information on a web site is usually stored on a series of "pages" or files each of which has its own address. Just as the links on the left of my page all take you to different pages stored on my site. Each of my pages has a specific, unique address, but all are based on my primary Domain Name.
Browser back to top
In order to use the internet you need a program called a "browser" that can "read" or display all the possible pages and services. The one with the lion's share is Internet Explorer 6 (IE6), but there are others such as Deepnet, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape, and Opera. Nigel Powell of the Sunday Times says -
"There are great free alternatives that work well, offer more security than Internet Explorer and have some cool features. Try Firefox or my favourite, Deepnet Explorer".
A well respected internet site, "cnet.com", published a comparison of the above browsers in May 2005 and rated Mozilla the best
- see here. My personal preference for some time has been Mozilla, but I have recently tried Deepnet which is like IE6 but without the problems. It is better than Firefox in that it allows HTML (fancy text etc) in webmail (which Firefox will not). I have also been told recently that Netscape is now a really top browser. All the private browsers are far less susceptible to security breaches than IE6. You can have all the browsers on your computer at the same time if you wish, but generally it is sensible to choose one as your "default" browser. "Default", in computer language, means the program (or font or style) which will be used if nothing else is specified. All of these browsers can be downloaded for free and installed on your PC.
Home Page back to top
Now that you have a browser you need to have a "home page" and a good search engine (explained below). The home page is the place where the browser goes to when it first opens. Many times the browser will initially default to "ninemsn" (a Packer-Foxtel-Microsoft consortium) which is filled with ads and in my opinion biased. Since I am always using the internet to find information, I prefer to have a good search engine as my home page. The best search engine, I used to believe, was Google which had less ads, was unbiased, quick and reliable. I have now found out that Google lies and has sinister reasons for garnering information about us. Hence I now use either "Scroogle" or "Clusty". There are other specialised search engines available but you can investigate them further when you have more knowledge and experience.
To make Clusty your home page do the following:
(Ensure you understand step 8 before actually starting the process)
1.
click once in the address line at the top of this page where it says "http://www.nobbysplace.com/puter.html"
2. now the line is blue; type the word 'clusty' in lower case with no quotes
3. press "CTRL+ENTER" (i.e.. hold the CTRL key and hit ENTER)
4. the address line will add the 'www' and '.com' then the page will
change to the Clusty search page.
5. click on Tools /Internet options and at the top of the "dialog box" which opens there is a section dealing with "home page"
6. click on the button which says "use current"
7. click "OK"
8. click the "back" button on the toolbar to get back to this page
Search back to top
I am amending (2 Dec 2005) this section and the previous one after learning some new facts about Google. It is not the honest, open search engine we all believed. See this site for more details: Google-Watch Google is in fact part of the Big-Brother spy network, linked to the CIA and other sinister organisations. Its primary aim is to make lots of money. The secondary one is to have lots of power and this means trying to control our lives by having every facet of what we do recorded and logged. It also seems to want to limit what information we are able to access - also part of the power ploy. The Google Toolbar is quite sinister: it sends information back to Google on every page you ever visit linking it to your name with the time and date. This information is held permanently and can be made available to anyone (e.g. CIA) that Google chooses.
A search engine is a program designed to find information on the internet. The program runs from its own server and looks for web pages that contain the data you typed in the search line. It then displays the results on your screen as a list of sites. The picture below shows my screen after I searched for "browsers compared" in Google. The second picture is the same search via Scroogle (using Deepnet).
There are several things to learn from the pictures : the results in the list all have a line of blue text at the top, then some black text, then some green text. The blue text is a "link", which means if you move your mouse cursor over the text the cursor changes to a white hand, and you can click on the link to be 'teleported' to that address. After you have clicked on a link it usually changes colour to a deep purple. The black text shows the context of where your search text appears, and the green text is the full address of the link. A web address is called a URL and it is that long name in the address bar which usually starts with "http://www". URL's are always written in lower case and may not have any spaces in them. Generally it is not wise to try to type a complete URL as it is too easy to mistype one character; most people prefer to copy and paste. Of course when using a search engine the results are always links which means you don't have to worry about getting the URL correct.
You will also notice in the Google picture that the second item is indented which means it is a secondary page on the same site as the one above it. It may be relevant but is less likely to be.
One strong suggestion I make if you are going to use Google, is to click on the "Preferences" link to the right of the search line. On the next page which appears, scroll down and put a "tick" (click with the mouse) in the box for "Results Window" (then click OK). This means each time you click on a link in a Google search-results page, the link will open in a new window leaving the search results still available. If you look at the Task Bar across the bottom of your screen you should have two program icons visible. You can click on either one to move back and forth between them. See picture below:
If you use Deepnet, the "pages" are shown as tabs, as can be seen in the second search picture above.
When you are doing a search for any topic at all, keep the search text simple, do not use "a", "of", "the", "in", "at", etc. For example if you wanted to find "which is the most expensive hotel in New York" you would type something like "hotel most expensive new york" (search text is not case sensitive). A problem in searches is that the engine will look for any document, anywhere, which has the single word "hotel" and any document with the word "expensive" and so on for all the other words in the search text. To avoid this you can put double quotes around text which must stay together. So we can narrow our search if we type "most expensive hotel" "new york". To further refine the search we can put a "+" sign in front of each word or group of words that must appear in the results (the first word/group is included automatically). So now we can type "most expensive hotel" +"new york". In doing the above steps my results dropped from 8,000,000 to 18,000, then 17,000.
Another fairly obvious point is that your search should not be too general. A search for "horses" yields about 45,000,000 results. It would be more sensible to include other words such 'racing', or 'paint', or 'purebred' etc. to get a more relevant result. You can also click in the part just below the search line to search only "pages from Australia". It seems that you get better results if you put the main word first; so type "horses +paint" rather than "paint horses".
Addresses back to top
When you wish to re-visit a site you have seen before (but it is not a Favorite) there are two ways of getting to it quickly. If you have typed or pasted an address in the address line then it will be listed in the "drop-down" box which appears when you click on the arrow (see picture) at the end of the address line. This box will store about 20 addresses before it starts to drop off the oldest ones as you add new ones. To select a site simply scroll down and click once on the site name. Addresses which you visit from a search-results page are not listed here nor are pages which you access from your Favorites.
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For sites that are not listed but which you have visited, you can click once in the Address line and type the first few letters of its name. The browser will immediately display a list of sites whose names start with those letters. For example if you clicked and typed "nob" it would bring up all my pages that you have visited - which could be one or several. Simply move the cursor to the appropriate site name and click it. Beware that you do not simply hit "enter" when the list gets displayed as this will default to the site "nob" as an address and you will get an error message as there is no such site. But it will still appear in future in the drop-down list!!!
If you do a clean-up of cookies and "Temporary Internet Files" this may remove some of the sites listed in the two lists.
One other little tip for typing addresses in the Address Bar: if the site is a dot.com, you can simply type the main word of the address and hit CTRL+ENTER - as we did above in going to the Google site. This will add the "http://www. com". You could type "hotmail" or "cococola" or "qantas" or "bigpond" and this would work. But note, this only works for sites of the form www.name.com, not for www.name.com.au nor www.name.net nor anything else.
Toolbars back to top
The next thing I wish to mention is the toolbar and the buttons on it. Notice my toolbar and address line in the Deepnet picture above; there are only five buttons displayed and no extra toolbars. The toolbar is meant to be a help so it is best kept simple and tidy. Furthermore, the screen is meant to display the information we have been seeking - it is a waste of space if it is crammed with three or four rows of useless toolbars. So I recommend that you clean things up a bit if it is too crowded.
Here's how: Right click on any of the toolbar area and you will see a list of the toolbars currently open on your PC. I suggest you need only two - the Standard Buttons bar and Address bar. In Mozilla the Address bar is automatic and the other is called the Navigation Bar. If there is a tick in front of any other toolbar you can hide it by clicking on its name. You can only hide one at a time so you may have to repeat this process.
If you wish to remove buttons then you right click on the toolbar area and select "customise". This opens a 'dialogue box' where you can add or remove buttons. The buttons for 'edit', 'history', 'print', 'search', 'discuss', 'favorites', 'mail', and 'cut-copy-paste' are all unnecessary in my opinion. By removing them you have room to move the Address Bar up alongside the other buttons thus giving you more screen space. To move the bar simply pause the mouse cursor over the far left end of the Address bar; the cursor becomes a four-headed arrow; then click-drag the bar to its new location.
I never edit, search, discuss, or send mail from an internet page and I don't need a button to be able to copy or paste. If I want the history I press "CTRL+H". If you want to "refresh" any page simply press the F5 key. If you click on the button for Favorites it opens a pane on the left of the screen which stays there using screen space. So I never use it: if I want my Favorites I click on the menu item. To add a page to your favorites, simply press "CTRL+D" while you are viewing the page. (Favorites in Mozilla are called "Bookmarks"). Within Favorites you can create folders which allow you to group common links. You can drag a link in favorites to any position or folder within the list simply by click-dragging.
If you wish to print some information from a web page I recommend that you copy the relevent portions to a Word document and "massage" it before printing. This allows you to eliminate ads, change the font size/colour and print only the text you need. To copy, you first "select" the information by dragging the cursor over it, then press "CTRL+C". Open the Word program and paste by pressing "CTRL+V". If the amount of text is large, it is easy to "select" it by dragging the cursor over the first few words, then scroll down to the end, and while pressing the SHFT key click at the end of the text. The whole lot goes blue meaning it is selected.
Dangers back to top
Are there any dangers in using the internet? Yes. But they can all be controlled if you take sensible steps. The primary danger is that while you are connected to the internet, hackers and other unwanted intruders can enter your PC and copy, delete or change information on your HDD (Hard Drive). Most frequently this intrusion would be by persons wishing to know your browsing or purchasing habits so as to target you for advertisements. The way to prevent intrusion is to have a "firewall" which is a program that prevents entrance or exit without your permission. Windows XP (if it includes Service Pack 2) has its own firewall but you can also purchase programs or download free ones such as "Zone Alarm".
The second possible danger is from little programs which install themselves on your PC without your permission either when you download something or while you are viewing a website. They are mainly for sending information back to advertising companies on your computer habits and preferences or they could constantly open a "pop-up" ad on your screen. They are called spyware or ad-ware. It is very difficult to block these programs but they are easily controlled by installing anti-spy and anti-ad programs which find and eliminate them. Two such programs which I use are "Spybot" and "Ad-aware" (there are many other programs available). Free versions are available from many sites and I suggest you download and install both programs. Then run them manually every week or so; each has a slightly different checking system so sometimes one will find files which the other misses. Any files which they find may be deleted without worries. You also need to regularly update their list of "spy files"; this is done from within the program itself and is free and simple to do.
A particularly nasty spy-ware program is called About:Blank or CoolWebSearch. It hijacks your home page and sometimes your desktop. There are several variants of the program and each uses different files and actions once installed, so there is no single, simple "fix". It is very difficult to remove and tends to reinstall itself after you reboot. A very effective free removal tool can be found at TrendMicro. They also sell other anti-spy programs but you do not need to buy anything to get this little removal tool. If you have About:Blank on your PC go to this site TrendMicro and download the file and run it.
There are dozens of sites on the internet which discuss the removal of this vicious, tenacious intruder. But beware, there are many programs which advertise themselves as being removal tools but they are in fact themselves spyware or trojans in disguise. In particular, if you get a pop-up suddenly appear on your screen which says your PC is infected and they will scan it for free, do NOT allow it. Click the close button on the ad window - it is certainly an intruder.
There is a very good site which has lots of wonderful advice on many subjects - including the About:Blank problem. It is here and is a compilation of users experiences in many fields including computers. The information on About:Blank runs to 12 pages which I have put into a Word document. If you right-click this link about_blank.doc and choose "save as" you can download the file to your PC. You can then read or print it at your leisure and use the information to kill the About:Blank intrusion.
Cookies back to top
An allied situation is those things called cookies - some of the spyware/adware comes in the form of cookies. But in general cookies are harmless. They are small text files that store information regarding web sites you have visited. Having them on your PC allows the server to better customise itself on your following visits. The information they store may be dates and times of your visit, details about online purchases, log-in information about you for members-only web sites, and more. Not all sites use cookies. You can block all cookies if you choose, but this may mean that you cannot access some sites. Your browser default settings probably allow cookies from the primary site but not from third-party sites; this is the setting I use. If you regularly use the anti-spyware programs mentioned above you need have no fear of cookies.
However, it is probably wise to clean out your cookies on a regular basis. An easy way to do this is to use IE6: go to Tools /Internet options, on the "General" tab, click "delete cookies..." and then click OK. While there you can also delete some non-essential files which your computer stores in the "Temporary Internet Files" folder. Click on "Delete Files..." click in the box for "Remove all off-line content", then click OK. These files are "cached", which means the PC keeps a "copy" of pages you have visited so it can load them more quickly next time you visit. Once when I forgot to clean my system I discovered I had nearly 40,000 such files stored and of course this was slowing my system down.
Downloads back to top
I have mentioned several times about "downloading" things. This means that a file is stored on a server on the internet and you want to get it to your computer. So you "download" it and save it to some location. I recommend that you create a new folder called "downloads" for just this purpose - probably best as a sub-folder in "My Documents". The download file might be a small program like "Spybot" or a music file or a form from a government office. In Mozilla the download location is set by you at installation. In IE6 you are asked for the location each time you download. In any case, get used to using one special folder and know where it is. The pictures below show the Mozilla download box above and the IE6 box below. In IE6 always choose "save", then it opens the standard "Save As" dialogue box for you to choose the location.
Many times when you click to download a file you will be taken to a page with multiple sites and you have to select a site. Sometimes they are called "mirror" sites. They are used because there are so many downloads from that source that one server could not cope; so they put copies on servers all around the world and you can choose one close to you. It doesn't really matter which one you choose (except when you get a foreign language site where you can't read the instructions).
Beware of downloading lots of "free" programs or toolbars. Generally, if the originator is a company, then they will have a "hook" in the free item - such as lots of ads, or even spyware included. The programs I have mentioned above as being suitable to download, all have commercial, "professional" versions available, which are more powerful then the free version and they will encourage you to buy them - it is up to you to succumb or not. However, there are many toolbars and gimmicky programs available (such as ones with Smiley faces) that encourage you to install but they all have many ads or some similar hook. Install them at your own risk!!
Sometimes you will get a large "pop-up" window which opens on your screen saying "your computer is at risk ....Let us do a free check ....". That does NOT mean you have been infected with the plague. It is simply an ad - which works on your fear. Ignore it, close it, delete it or whatever. But don't feel you must obey its orders. Treat it like the bell on the ice-cream truck that passes your house: you don't have to buy!
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