Surfing the Net

• Surfing the net• Browsers – Internet Explorer, Firefox,

others• Dissecting URLs• Some web page definitions• Browser navigation• Bookmarks• The web browser’s cache

What is Surfing?

• Surfing means to use a browser to go from site to site to find information

• Browsing is a synonym for “surfing the Net”

• A link to a word or picture triggers the object of the link

What is a Browser?

• A browser is the program you run when you surf the Internet

• A browser can download pictures, audio, and video content

• Browsers need to be configured to display content as well as secure

• Some browsers include Internet Explorer. Firefox, Safari, Netscape, and Opera

Internet Explorer (IE)

• Pre-installed on computers with Windows O/S

• The handheld Pocket IE runs under Windows CE

• Currently IE is the most commonly used browser– Over 58% of internet users use IE

Firefox

• An enhanced browser built on open source code for Netscape Navigator

• Open source code is available to the public free of charge

• You can download Windows, Linux or Macintosh versions of Firefox

• Is the number 2 browser with +35% of Internet users

Safari

• Apple’s default Web browser for the Macintosh computer

• Users need to run the Mac OSX operating system

• 1.5% of Internet users use Safari

Understanding URLs

• URL means universal resource locator• URL parts occur in this order:

– Protocol– Server name– Port number (optional and rarely seen)– File name (optional)– Anchor (optional)

• URLs aren’t exclusively used for web pages

URL Definitions

Dissecting a URL

http://www.mccc.edu/student_library.shtmlhttp: You use Hyper Text Transfer Protocol to access

this page// tells us that the page is hosted remotely

www tells us that the page is on a world wide web server

mccc tells us that the page is part of the Mercer County Community College’s network

edu tells us that this site is an educational institution

student_library.shtml is the specific file for this page

Using a URL to your advantage

• Sometimes a page you ask for no longer exists

Error 404 page not found• The page may be gone or the URL may

have changed• Try slicing off the last piece* of the URL

and see what you get. It may lead you to the page you wanted

• This method also works for pages you like and want to look for more on the same topic* You may need to do this a couple of times

Moving back & forward

• You already know to use the back & forward button to move around one page at a time

• By right clicking on your back button, you get a list of the places you’ve visited recently

• Using the dropdown on your address bar also will give you a list of recently visited sites.

Your Browser’s History

• Viewing your browser’s history will give you a more complete list of visited sites

• You can also control how much history you keep as well as deleting your history should you choose

Bookmarks

Bookmarks/Favorites

• Though a history list remembers where you’ve been, it remembers every site you visited both good and bad.

• To remember the “good” sites you’ve run across use bookmarks (IE uses the term Favorites)

• Bookmarks are a personalized list of sites you want to remember

Bookmarks/Favorites

• Most browsers come with some preset bookmarks

• Let’s see what you have, click on “favorites” or “bookmarks” to se what’s there

Bookmarks/Favorites

• The easiest way to bookmark a site is to actually at the site itself

• Let’s bookmark a site– Go to www.mccc.edu– Click on bookmarks or favorites– Add this bookmark– Click on OK to save the bookmark

Bookmarks/Favorites

• After you’ve collected a number of bookmarks, you’ll soon find that the list can be cumbersome

• You will need to organize them into categories/folders (like you do with computer files)

• Remember to delete bookmarks that you no longer need and ones that came with your browser that you don’t want.

Bookmarks/Favorites

• Spend some time deciding what categories you’ll want to break your bookmarks into as well as sub categories

• Music– Jazz– Classical– Hip-hop– Rock

Bookmarks/FavoritesMusic

– Classical– Blues– Country– Jazz

– Swing– Bebop

– Charlie Parker– Dizzy Gillespie

– Fusion– Smooth

Now it’s your turn to work with bookmarks