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Short filmTranscript
00:00Welcome to the Video Professor series of computer learning tapes, the nation's number one computer
00:11trainer. We'll take you step by step through learning to use your computer software. On the
00:17screen now are some other tapes available in our series. When using these tapes, we suggest you
00:22watch them in their entirety. Then go back with your computer and practice each step. In keeping
00:27with the Video Professor's dedication to giving you the best lesson possible, we have packed
00:32these tapes with information and sometimes move at a pace that is faster than you will
00:36be able to follow along with as you are working with your computer. Remember, you can always
00:40pause or rewind the tape to learn each part. Now let's get started. The internet, the information
00:49highway, the new electronic frontier, the world wide web. These phrases and concepts have
00:54become a part of everyday language, yet many of us still don't really know what these
00:58terms mean. In this lesson, we will not only introduce you to the basic concepts of these
01:03high-tech buzzwords, but by following along with our easy to understand instructions, we'll
01:08have you on the internet, actually driving on the information highway, and experiencing for
01:13yourself what these advances in communications and computer technologies hold in store for you.
01:19In this lesson, we will cover the system requirements needed to get you on the internet, how to set up
01:24a connection with a service provider, what service providers are, and what they offer. We'll see
01:29how to use electronic mail transfer or email, and how to browse the world wide web, where you will
01:35discover many places you can go for finding interesting subjects. Before going further, I'd like to
01:40introduce my assistant, Suzanne. Viewers, normally I set up our lessons so you can follow along step
01:45by step as I guide Suzanne through the program. We will still do that, but the program we will be using,
01:50America Online may not be on everyone's computer. PC Magazine ranks AOL as their editor's choice for
01:57providers, saying AOL's easy to use graphical interface, wide choice of content, and full easy
02:02internet access has proven enticing to both professionals and hobbyists. It is because of
02:08this and the fact that America Online is the largest service provider that we chose to use them to
02:13demonstrate this lesson. We'll also be using Windows 95. If you don't have Windows 95 on your computer, or
02:19prefer using another provider service, you will still be able to understand how these programs
02:24work and follow along. All internet providers work pretty much the same, and once on the internet,
02:29all the basic information is the same. So after you see how the features of these programs work,
02:34you'll be ready to cruise the internet no matter what program you use. I'll go into more detail about
02:39this later. I'm going to assume that each of you are familiar with the basics of computer operation and
02:44working within the Windows 95 environment. If you're new to Windows, you may want to see my tapes on
02:49learning windows and Windows 95 first. Professor, what exactly is the internet? Suzanne, that's a
03:01perfect place to start. What exactly is the internet? Best defined, the internet is a system of
03:06interconnected computers. Some of these computers are single standalone units. Some are entire networks
03:12comprised of multiple computers like you might find on a college campus. But what makes up the internet
03:18is that these computers are linked together by communication paths and are all in agreement
03:23to use the same communication language. The internet is estimated to connect some hundreds of thousands
03:28of computers and computer networks and link together 30 to 40 million individual users. If you think
03:34that these numbers sound imprecise, it's because the internet is growing so fast and is so loosely
03:39organized that no one really knows exactly how many computers or users there really are. What's most
03:44important about this huge network is what it does. When our computer terminals are connected to the
03:49internet, we can view information that resides in our own cities or in another state or in another
03:54country halfway around the world. The internet is not owned or controlled by anyone. In fact, it was designed
04:01by the government in the Cold War era to keep communication paths open in case of a nuclear attack. With so
04:07many paths open like an international telephone system, the information could flow freely even if many
04:12locations were destroyed. The beauty of the internet is that we don't have to know about how it works.
04:19We can just accept the fact that it does work smoothly, easily, and seamlessly on a worldwide basis.
04:26Suzanne, let's start by listing the things we need in order to gain access to the internet.
04:30The computer is the first item on the list. Your computer must have a modem that is connected to a
04:35telephone line. You'll also need data communication software and a provider to gain access to the internet.
04:42For those of you who may not have these items yet or may be looking to upgrade your computer,
04:46let's take a quick look at the details of each item. It's important to understand what they are
04:51and how they work. The first item on our list is a computer. I should mention here that there are
04:56internet access tools for DOS-only PCs, Macintoshes, OS2s, and just about every other type of operating
05:03system in use today. We will be referring to Windows-based PCs in this lesson. Your computer should have a
05:09386, 486, or Pentium microprocessor. You will need at least 4 megabytes of random access memory,
05:16better known as RAM. 8 megs of RAM is better and 16 megs is better yet for some of the larger graphic
05:23programs you'll find. Your hard drive will need at least 3 to 5 megabytes of free space, but it is
05:29recommended to have at least 15 megabytes available for AOL's new 3.0 version to run smoothly. Some
05:35programs like Microsoft Network recommend as much as 30 megs of free hard disk space. You will also
05:41need a mouse, a keyboard, and a monitor with VGA or higher capabilities. The system needs to be
05:46running DOS 3.1 or higher and Windows 3.1 or higher. A printer and a Windows-compatible sound card are
05:53optional but very useful. A modem allows the computer to translate its data into a signal that can travel
05:59over a standard telephone line to talk to another computer. You will need a Hays compatible modem that
06:04runs at least 9600 bits per second or a 9600 baud modem. The modem can be internal or external.
06:11The type of modem as well as the modem's speed are considerations that you should talk to your
06:15computer dealer about. The faster the modem is able to transfer data, the faster the internet
06:21information will appear. Again, this also depends on the amount of RAM you have. It's recommended to have
06:26at least a 14.4 baud modem. A 28.8 baud is twice as fast and a good thing to have when exploring some of
06:32the graphic-oriented programs you find on the internet. There are even faster modems being
06:37sold now so check with your dealer. Remember, speed is time on the computer. The faster you can get
06:42information, the less time you'll spend waiting for it and the less connect time you'll pay for.
06:48Our next item is a telephone line. This will give us the communication path into an internet access
06:53point. Suzanne is using a standard analog telephone voice line. If you happen to have any telephone
06:59extensions in the house, make sure nobody picks up another receiver while our computer is using it,
07:03or your connection will be seriously disrupted. Communication software is the next requirement.
07:09This software activates the modem and it's often supplied along with it. The windows program has
07:13its own communication program and some internet service providers have their own communication
07:18software. Which brings us to providers. There are several ways to access the internet and the easiest is
07:23to use one of the most popular providers such as AOL, Prodigy, CompuServe, or Microsoft Network.
07:30These programs are geared to provide very user-friendly point and click systems for you to access the
07:34internet as well as many other areas of interest in that particular program. You may want to do some
07:40research into what they have to offer to suit your needs. Each of these providers have their own format
07:44which includes many services and activities as well as access to the internet. Later in this lesson,
07:50I will show you information as to cost and the various services of these providers plus their phone
07:55numbers so you can decide which is best for you. But for now, let me explain a little bit about what
08:00these providers offer. We'll go into more detail with some of these areas when we get online. Each of
08:05these providers allow you to have an email address all your own so you can write and receive mail on your
08:10computer. They have bulletin boards where you can post and read notes on a variety of subjects.
08:16They have chat groups on many subjects that allow you to actively communicate with others who may
08:21or may not share your view. They have programs to limit internet access to your children.
08:26They have their own shopping areas. They have information on the latest and most interesting
08:30news stories. They have interviews and discussion groups with celebrities and people in the know
08:35dealing with every subject you can think of and programs to help you gain access to the internet and
08:41world wide web. Although these providers offer the same kind of features, they are exclusive to
08:46each provider. Like a city that has two newspapers where the section headings are the same but the
08:51content is different. These providers offer the same kind of features but differ as to their content,
08:57meaning AOL's chat group will not be the same as prodigies. Where they are similar is when you
09:02leave their site and enter the world of the internet which again is accessible through all of these
09:07providers. Some other providers offer plain vanilla access directly to the internet. These providers
09:12don't offer many other programs or services other than access to the internet. They also offer little
09:18or no instruction on how to use the internet resources. We'll also look at some of these services later in
09:23this lesson. There are other ways to get to the internet using Freenet programs but we won't be looking
09:27at them in this lesson. Again, we are going to use AOL as our provider. Look at some of the features of
09:33that program and then explore the world wide web. Remember, if you have or want another provider,
09:39they all work pretty much the same and offer the same kinds of programs so you can still learn what
09:44these programs do and how they work just by observing our journey into cyberspace. After deciding on your
09:49provider, the first thing you need to do is establish an account with them so you can use their services.
09:55Establishing an account is a cookie cutter approach of fill in the blanks and is the same procedure for all
10:00providers. We'll run through this quickly. If your modem uses another program, for instance,
10:11a fax program, you should exit that application before starting this setup process. If you have
10:16a floppy disk of the provider you want, simply put it in your floppy drive, select run from the start
10:21menu and type in the installation command. This is usually a setup command located right on the disk.
10:27The installation process will begin. To register, you'll be asked for all your personal information
10:32like name and address. You'll be asked to enter the phone numbers that best fit your location for the
10:37number to call in to the provider. This is a choose from the list type of option. You may need to provide
10:43what type of modem you have, how fast it is, and what com port it is connected to so be prepared with that
10:49information. Finally, you'll be asked to give a credit card number to pay for your account and be asked to
10:54enter your screen name and or password, which is usually supplied with the software. Most providers
10:59allow you to change this to something more suitable to your liking after signing on. After all that's
11:04done, you can sign on to the service and start your journey into cyberspace. Well, here we are. We've
11:10successfully made the connection with AOL. Understand we're not quite on the internet yet. This is the
11:15provider's program that also has lots of places to go and things to do. Let's take a quick tour of some of
11:20these features. Viewers, remember if you have another provider, they probably have the same sort of
11:25features in their program and clearly marked as to how to access them. If you've just installed your
11:30program, you may have some automatic updates loaded onto your computer when the welcome screen appears
11:35or at other times during an online session. This process keeps your software up to date with the latest
11:41upgrades. Also, the opening screens are always being changed with new things. Since this is
11:46constantly happening with online services, your screen will look different from Suzanne's.
11:56We're looking at the AOL's welcome screen right now. Viewers, don't worry if your screen looks a
12:01little different than ours. It changes quite often to display up-to-date topics. These topics can be
12:07accessed by clicking on their icons. This screen also lets you know if you have received an email.
12:12Suzanne, click on the button marked Channels. Now we have a screen displaying all the general topic
12:19areas you have access to. This screen, as well as most of the screens you'll see, has all the familiar
12:25Windows features. Click once on the File menu item and then press your right arrow a few times and you see
12:31many of the commands available to you. Now, Suzanne, click anywhere outside the drop-down menu and slowly
12:46move your pointer across the icons on the menu bar and notice you'll get a message about what these icons
12:51do. As with any Windows program, you have several ways to accomplish the same task.
12:56Probably the easiest way to access different locations is through using the Topic buttons
13:04on the main menu screen. As you can see, there are several places to visit right here in America Online.
13:09Let's quickly see how to navigate through this system. Suzanne, click on Personal Finance.
13:14This leads us to a screen with more choices. Let's choose stocks and investing by double-clicking on those words.
13:29Now we have more choices. On the right are several choices for reading what some stock
13:33analysts have to say about the market. Click the quotes and portfolios.
13:38Now we are given a screen where we can actually find what stocks are trading for and create a portfolio
13:46for your investments. Type in IBM, the stock symbol for IBM, in the quote box.
13:53Click on the quotes button and we get what shares of IBM are selling for at this time,
13:58whether it's up or down, and a history of its highs and lows. We are not actually on the internet here,
14:03but choosing subjects to take you deeper into more specific areas is similar to what we will
14:08experience once we get on the internet. Click on this windows close button to move back one level
14:13and keep closing windows until we are back to the channels window.
14:21Again, viewers, other providers offer similar topics that come with their program. All these topics are
14:26easy to access, and I'm sure you'll want to come back and explore them on your own. But for now,
14:31let's move on to sending and receiving email.
14:39Email stands for electronic mail and is a way for you to send letters as well as computer files
14:44to other computers that are hooked up to the internet and or a provider service. Click the
14:49welcome button on the bottom of the screen and we now see our icon for mail. If you have new mail,
14:58this button would say you have mail. We don't seem to have any, but click on this icon anyway to open
15:03AOL's mail messaging system. Viewers, you may get a download here if you've just set up a new account.
15:12On the upper right of this screen, you have several menu choices. These choices will change often for
15:17current affairs. Under other things you can do are several choices you can check out by double clicking
15:23on these words. Click on online newsletters. Now click on about online newsletters.
15:38Here you can read what these services are all about. Close these windows back to our mail screen.
15:43Click on message exchange. And on the next screen, click on list categories.
16:00Now we are given three categories to check out. Click on list topics.
16:04Notice on top of this window, we are given topics with 3,368 documents created. Let's read all of them.
16:15Just kidding. But I did want to point out there is a lot of information for you to read about email if you want it.
16:22Click on unwanted mail and you get many ways to read and reply to email problems you might encounter.
16:30This is an area you may want to come back and check out so you don't fall into pitfalls many
16:34others have experienced. One note here. Be careful who you send your email address to,
16:39as you could start getting junk mail just like you do through your regular mail.
16:43Okay, close all of these windows back to our mail center screen.
16:52Suzanne, click on the mail pull down menu.
16:54Here are more choices for things to do with your email. From this list, you can open the mail center,
17:03check new mail, or read mail you've already read or already sent. Suzanne, click on the edit address
17:08book option. We'll check out some of the other options in a minute. Since we haven't entered any
17:14addresses in our address book yet, this box is empty. Let's enter one now. Suzanne, click on the create button.
17:21The address book screen is ready for us to enter our first address. Viewers, to demonstrate sending
17:29mail and using your address book, we are going to send a letter to Santa. You can join us and make
17:34your next Christmas wish list or send mail to an address you know that's more practical. Santa has
17:39his email address set up to use his own name as the computer name. There are two areas to enter information
17:45in your address book. The top box wants to know how you associate with the addressee. For example, a person's
17:51real name, mom, dad, a corporate name. We'll enter Santa Claus. With the cursor flashing in that box, type that in.
18:02Press your tab key and the cursor is now flashing in the address box. Type Santa,
18:06Santa, the at sign, that's shift F2, SantaClause.com. An email address cannot contain any spaces, so make
18:17sure there aren't any. With that done, click OK and OK again. Now click on the compose button on the main menu screen.
18:30Here is where we address, write, and send our mail. Electronic mail is very similar to regular post office
18:38mail, except that it's faster, since it travels through computer and telephone line connections.
18:42We can build on our understanding of a regular letter to see how email works. In regular mail,
18:47you write the address on the envelope using the person's name, street address, city, state, and zip.
18:53An email address follows a pattern just like a postal address. It includes the address information
18:58needed to route a message from your computer along the phone connections to someone else's computer.
19:04In the to box is where we put the address of our destination. You can simply type the address
19:09in this box, but since we've set up Santa's address in our address book, let's see how to retrieve it.
19:14In the lower left corner of this window is the address book icon. Click on it.
19:21A list of our addresses appears. We only have the one now, but you can imagine how it could fill up quickly.
19:27Make sure Santa is highlighted and click on the to button. Our address is automatically entered into
19:33our to box. Click ok to close the address book and click in the cc box. In the cc box you can enter
19:42another address you want your mail to be sent as a courtesy copy. You can enter your own address to
19:48send a copy of this mail to yourself. Let's do that to keep a copy of this letter. Viewers, your computer
19:53name on AOL is the ID you use to sign on. The at sign followed by AOL.com. Again, no spaces. Each
20:02provider has their own extension, so be sure if you are using another provider to use that extension.
20:07For example, Prodigy uses your username at sign Prodigy.com. So your email address has three parts.
20:15Let's put them together. First, type your account ID, the letters and numbers you use to sign on.
20:21Suzanne, do you remember ours? That's right, the professor. Then an at sign. And finally,
20:29the name of the service location, which is AOL.com. That's it, Suzanne. Our very own email address.
20:38Suzanne, we have the addresses entered, so press your tab key this time to go to the next section,
20:43subject. This is the space where you can give a short title to your message. When email shows up
20:48in your mailbox, you'll see who it's from and the title they've given it. When you start getting lots
20:53of messages, this helps sort through the stack of mail. So when you send a message to someone else,
20:57the subject title helps them sort it out as well. You can use any kind of title you'd like. Let's call
21:02this message A New Modem. Type that title into the subject box, Suzanne, and tab to the next area.
21:12We're finally ready to type the message to Santa Claus. Email messages can be as large as 24k,
21:18but we'll keep this one short and to the point. Viewers, type in your own wish list if you'd like.
21:23You never know what Cyber Santa might do. Suzanne, type Dear Santa.
21:30I've been really good so far this year.
21:31And I'd really like to get a new modem for my computer.
21:50Thanks. See you at Christmas.
22:01There's your letter to Santa, Suzanne.
22:03Professor, I didn't sign it.
22:05How will he know who it's from?
22:07You're right, Suzanne. It's a courtesy to add a sign off.
22:10Many folks had quotes and other tag lines to their email messages as well. But even if you didn't,
22:15your computer name would be automatically added to the message and displayed in your
22:19receiver's incoming mailbox along with the subject line. Go ahead and type your name at the bottom,
22:24Suzanne. This is a good place to use your real name instead of your email name.
22:29Suzanne, highlight your name by dragging your mouse cursor
22:32over it like you would do in any word processor. Notice we have a few formatting icons at the top
22:38of this box. Click the B for boldface and your name is now boldfaced. Notice you can change the color
22:44of the text, font size, boldface, underline, italicize, and change the alignment of text to left,
22:52center, or right justify. That's it, Suzanne. Your email is ready to go. All you need to do to send it
22:59is click send. But don't do that just yet. I want to show you one other feature of the email program.
23:04See the icon marked attach? Click on it, Suzanne.
23:10Email is not only a good, fast, and inexpensive way to write letters, it can also be used to send
23:15computer files. You could use this file dialog box to select the file you want to send. Then when you
23:21send your mail, the file would go with it. When your mail is received, the new mail window will show
23:26you an icon that signifies that the email has an attached file. The name of the attached file,
23:32its size, and the amount of time it will take to download will be indicated. There are buttons on
23:38the bottom that give you the option of downloading now or later. I won't go into detail with attaching
23:43files in this lesson, but we'll show you where to go to find more information about it. But first,
23:48let's send our mail to Santa, so cancel out of this dialog box.
23:51Now all you need to do is click on the send button.
23:59You are prompted that it has indeed been sent, so click OK.
24:02Professor, since I'm in AOL, if I send a letter to someone with a different provider,
24:09will they get it? Yes, they would, Suzanne. Since your mail does travel over the internet,
24:13it can go to all the other online services. I want to cover a few more things about your email service
24:19before we move on. Close this window. To find out more about attaching files, click on basic email help.
24:34Now click on how do I download an attached file?
24:41From here you can read about the do's and don'ts about this subject.
24:45Click the close button. You can also read about other internet mail services here and how AOL handles them.
24:52Close this window and click on beyond the basics.
24:59Here you can read about how to attach files to your documents plus other subjects that may interest you.
25:04Now close this window and open your mail drop down menu and choose mail you've sent.
25:14We now get a list of mail we've sent. We can read it again, show status, or delete it.
25:23Let's do that, Suzanne, to get rid of our letter to Santa. Simply make sure it is highlighted. Click the delete button.
25:29And it's gone. Now close all the windows back to the welcome screen.
25:40Look, we have mail. Click on that button. Remember, we sent Santa's letter to ourselves.
25:46To read incoming mail, simply click on it or highlight it and click on the read button.
25:50There's our letter. Let's delete it also since there is no need to keep a copy of it.
25:58Select mail and mail you've read this time.
26:00Make sure it is highlighted and click delete.
26:10Go ahead and close the mail windows to get back to our welcome screen.
26:15You'll quickly collect your own list of email addresses as you talk with online friends and
26:19exchange messages. On the screen now are some other popular email addresses. Happy mailing!
26:30By the way, if you're ever just checking places out and get a little lost, you can always return
26:35to this welcome screen by pulling down the go-to menu item and selecting the welcome menu
26:42or go to the channel screen by clicking on the third icon on the menu bar, the channels icon.
26:48It's time for us to move on to the next topic, Suzanne, a visit to the World Wide Web.
26:53The World Wide Web is the fastest growing and most popular segment of the internet.
27:03It utilizes an easy to use graphical interface to display and explore any subject from growing
27:08flowers to building jet engines. It is often just called the web for short.
27:13Click on the internet button, Suzanne.
27:15This opens another screen with a variety of topics to choose from.
27:24This allows you to check out the best of or search for things on the web, news groups, gopher and FTPs.
27:31We'll cover news groups in our second lesson on learning the internet and talk about gopher
27:35and FTP in our third lesson. There are several ways to enter the web from AOL. You can click on the
27:41web icon here or click on the internet connection button. Let's do that, Suzanne.
27:46You can also get to this location from the channel screen. Again, we have several choices of places
27:51to go on the right side of the screen. There is a lot of information about the internet here and a
27:55good place to come back and check out what's being said. We could enter the web by clicking on the
28:01World Wide Web graphic, but the easiest way to enter the web, no matter what location you are in,
28:06is to click on the globe on the menu bar. Go ahead and do that, Suzanne.
28:14Viewers, again, I must emphasize that what you see on your screen will not match what you see here.
28:19These opening screens change often, displaying topics of the current times. If the subjects and
28:24choices we make are not available when you are viewing this lesson, don't worry. The process we
28:29use to move and search for things on the web will not change, and once you understand that, you'll be
28:35able to use these tools to find subjects that interest you. AOL's Welcome to the World Wide
28:40Web screen offers many options that will take you off into different directions. We are now in the
28:46World Wide Web. You can tell because we now have a little box on top of the screen showing the URL,
28:51or Universal Resource Locator, of this home page, also known simply enough as their web address. In this
28:58case, the address of AOL's World Wide Web homepage. By the way, since we are now on the web, this home page can be
29:04brought up no matter what internet provider you are using. If you can access the web, just type
29:09this address in your address box and follow along. Before exploring the web, let's take some time to
29:15look at some of the components of these web pages. The first is hyperlinks. You've already seen how
29:20clicking on buttons, icons, and colored text can take you to different locations. This connection through
29:26these different locations is called hypertext links and hypermedia links, also known as hyperlinks.
29:31AOL's Welcome to the World Wide Web screen offers many options that will take you off into different
29:37directions. Suzanne, move your mouse pointer around the screen and notice how the pointer turns into
29:42a hand as it moves over the graphics and colored words. As we've seen, clicking on these graphic symbols
29:48or colored words will take you to a new location associated with that link. For example, click on
29:54History. Click on the list of the page. Click on the list of the page. Click on the list of the page.
29:59We now have another page with more choices. Scroll down a bit and we have topics of how it works,
30:07finding your way around, and history. Choosing any of these subjects will take you to other pages with
30:13information on that subject or give you more choices pertaining to that subject. For example,
30:18click on History. And now we get some more information to read. Another list of things to
30:28check out. And scrolling down the page, we see a list of documents including a History of the Internet
30:33by Bruce Sterling. There's some good reading here that you may want to come back to. Scroll back up the
30:39page, click the Welcome to AOL selection, and we return to AOL's home page.
30:47Again, hyperlinks allows a user to point and click on words or graphic symbols to move to a new location
30:53or file. The unique thing about the hyperlinks you find on the web is that a single click on these items
30:58can move you to a different part of this page or a completely different computer site halfway around
31:04the world. This shift won't even be noticeable to you except for a small time lag as the screen
31:08changes. Will I be charged for long distance when it moves to a website out of my area?
31:13No, Suzanne. There is no long distance charge for this move, and that is the beauty of the internet.
31:18You are only being charged for your online time through your provider. Again, notice the symbols
31:23and text in the little box just above the screen. This box displays the web address for this home page.
31:30Each location opens with what's known as a home page. A home page is the starting point for a specific
31:35web location, and people are adding new home pages by the minute. You'll find home pages from
31:41individuals who may be looking for other people with similar interests to major corporations,
31:45governments, even countries. These home pages are accessible to anybody throughout the world who is
31:50on the internet. These web address boxes are automatically filled in to identify the website
31:55showing on the screen. These often start with http colon slash slash followed by www. This stands for
32:04Hypertext Transfer Protocol on the World Wide Web, followed by the name assigned to the computer.
32:10If you knew another web address you wanted to visit, you could type it in this box, press enter,
32:15and you would be taken to that address. Each home page may have hyperlinks that take it further down the
32:19page you're on to other pages in that site or to other sites around the world. It translates the
32:25hypertext links into behind the scenes commands so you can easily surf the web. Web surfing or cruising
32:31means just following various links out of curiosity. A web surfer uses the hypertext links to move from
32:37one location to another just to see where they'll end up. With hyperlinks, web documents are continuously
32:43being connected together. Each hyperlink pointer ties one web page to another web page and another,
32:49with a simple click of the mouse. The process creates an intricate crisscross of resources that might
32:53literally look like a spider web weaving together computers from all over the world. Remember,
32:59the web is changing daily. Links that you find today may be changed tomorrow, and new links will
33:04certainly be added. Believe me, the web is a very dynamic place. Again, viewers, this means that what
33:11you see on your computer screen may not be exactly the same as what is on our screens as we proceed through
33:16the lesson. One more thing we should understand before moving on is the tools we use to find our way around
33:22this gigantic wealth of information. There are two basic programs that help with this task.
33:27They are browsers and search tools. Browsers are programs that allow you to look at pages as you
33:33follow your hyperlinks through the web, choosing different subjects. Search engines allow you to
33:38type in keywords for places or subjects that interest you, and they will scour the web looking for locations
33:44that contain the words you've typed. That seems simple enough, but what can get complicated is there are
33:50several different browser and search programs you can choose from on the web, each with their own
33:55functions that make them better for a particular task. Right now, we are using AOL's browser. Again,
34:01it's the interface that allows you to choose menu items and hypertext links to surf the web. Other
34:07popular browsers are Microsoft Explorer and Netscape. Explorer comes with AOL 3.0 for Windows 95,
34:13and Netscape comes with other popular internet providers, as well as a standalone program you can
34:18download off the internet and use with AOL. We cover downloading Netscape in my level 3 lesson.
34:24We're looking at AOL's welcome to the web homepage. On the right, we see graphic links to other sites.
34:31Scrolling down, we see featured links. These links take you to places AOL thinks have important
34:37information for their customers. You may want to come back and visit these sites later. Clicking on any of
34:42these blue words will start you on a journey into that subject. On the left, we see some other choices,
34:47rather than the one we made for starting out. Suzanne, click on AOL Netfind Home.
34:58AOL's Netfind Home page is another page where you can choose from many subjects with an added
35:02feature of starting a search. Along the top, we see a place to enter information to start a search.
35:08You just type in the words describing what you are looking for and click on Find. We'll do searches a little
35:14later. For now, Suzanne, scroll down this page just a bit and we see a variety of topics we can choose
35:25from. To demonstrate how to surf the web, let's choose something everyone should have an interest
35:30in. How about movies? You can always come back here and check out some of the other choices later.
35:35Suzanne, put your little hand over movies and click.
35:38Notice AOL has two ways of showing it's working as we wait for our new location's home page.
35:45The logo at the top of the screen spins around and on the bottom of the screen we get a gauge
35:49showing us how far along we are in the downloading process. Another thing I should mention here is if
35:55you feel something is taking too long to download or you choose something by mistake, you can click the
36:00stop button to cancel that request. We now have entered another page with more choices. This is what you find
36:06quite often when choosing subjects. Each choice takes you to another page with more specific choices,
36:11allowing you to narrow down what you are interested in. Let's choose the first one on the list, Actors.
36:21Again, we have several topics to choose from. Scroll down the list a bit and let's see what we have.
36:27Notice we have some text that tells us more about what we'll find at each site.
36:31The Clint Eastwood site looks promising. Go ahead and click on it.
36:41Well, it appears we need a special program to view and hear some of the special effects
36:46this site has to offer. This brings up a very important subject about viewing sites on the internet.
36:51New technology is constantly being added to what we see on the web, such as live video and large
36:57graphic and sound files. There are many programs that allow you to see these files. However, there
37:03is not a standard, so many sites require you to download a specific program to view these areas.
37:09This one, the ActiveX Viewer, will allow you to view and hear special effects this site has to offer.
37:15You will find other sites need other players to view their special effects. Some of these programs can
37:20easily be downloaded, while others require you to download, install, and restart your browser for them to
37:26work. You may not want to take the time or drive space needed to download these programs. If you
37:32don't, you will still be able to view most of the information the site has to offer. On the other hand,
37:37a lot of people enjoy using the new technology and don't want to miss anything the site has to offer.
37:42As some of these programs become popular, the browsers you use may add these players to their
37:46programs, so you will have them automatically. Everything changes quickly on the web. Let's choose no for
37:53now. I want to demonstrate that we don't need the player to view this site.
38:02Gee, Professor, this might take a long time. Look at how slow it's going.
38:06Yes, Suzanne, and that will give us a chance to mention something very important. It will sometimes
38:11take several minutes to download a home page, especially if it has lots of graphics. Graphics are
38:17one of the neat things about the web. However, the larger the graphic file, the longer it will take to
38:22download it to your machine. In some cases, you may be interested in the graphics or you may be
38:27interested only in the accompanying information. The web browsers provide you a way to view a home
38:31page with the graphic downloading capability turned off. This allows you to move much faster around the
38:37web. We'll see how to do this in a second. Okay, we have finally linked to Clint Eastwood's home page.
38:43Once the requested page is selected, the home page URL address of our destination is displayed on the top
38:49lines of our screen. Viewers, if this choice was not available when you are viewing this lesson,
38:54delete everything after the www and type the address manwithnoname.com in the address box.
39:01Remember to enter the dashes between the words as you see in the address. Just like email,
39:06this cannot have any spaces. When finished, press enter. If this site still exists, you will be taken
39:11there. Let's scroll down the page to see what information we have about this site and Mr. Eastwood.
39:16At the bottom are several buttons that will take us to other areas on this site. Let's try photographs.
39:29Again, we get our message telling us this site contains an embedded file
39:33and needs ActiveX to perform the effects. We are not going to download this player for this lesson,
39:39so let's select no again. ActiveX may have some importance for this site, but in reality at this
39:45moment there are other more important players that are used at this site and exist in numerous other
39:50sites you visit, so let's learn about them. But first since we are in the photograph site, let's look
39:55at one. Click on Unforgiven. After a small download time, we are given a picture from that movie.
40:03Graphics and pictures are a big part of the web, but audio and video are becoming more popular,
40:08so let's see how they work. Suzanne, see the button marked back at the top of this window?
40:13This will take you back one web page at a time. This button is very useful. Once in a while,
40:18you will find yourself following a link that becomes a dead end, or you might just want to
40:22back up a page or two to take a different direction. Press this button twice.
40:31And we are back at the Eastwood home page. Scroll down and from the buttons we saw before,
40:36choose Video Clips this time. We are given a page that first explains that we need a special program
40:47to play these clips. As I mentioned before, this player called VDO is a popular program used at many
40:53other sites. You may or may not wish to download this one. As with ActiveX, you don't need to view
40:59everything at a site. But to see this format of live video, you must install it. Since video has a
41:05very large amount of information or file size, it's not like seeing a real video on your TV.
41:10Because it travels through phone lines, the pictures you see are small and very jittery.
41:14Someday soon, I'm sure, technology will improve. I won't go through the steps for installing this
41:19program in this lesson. If you wish to install it, simply click on the VDO icon, Get Alive,
41:25and you'll be given directions on what to do. If you do choose to install, there is one thing you
41:29should know beforehand. You will have to restart the browser or AOL's welcome to the web page
41:34for them to take effect. If you do this and want to continue to follow this lesson, you'll have to
41:38re-enter everything we've done so far or add this site to your favorite places. If you don't know how
41:44to add sites to your favorite places, we will cover that at the end of this section. Now let's check out
41:49some options we have with menu items and the row of buttons on the top of the screen. We already
41:54mentioned the stop button. When you begin a process and decide that it was a wrong choice or it is
41:59taking too long, you simply hit the stop button to abort. Jumping to the left side of these buttons,
42:05we see the back button that we used once before. Suzanne, click on this button again until you return
42:10to the photographs page. As you can see, this button is useful for quick access to pages you may want to
42:16come back to. For example, to check out another picture of Clint. Likewise, the forward button will take
42:21you forward. This only works if you've used the back button. Suzanne, click on the Prefs button.
42:27This opens a dialog box with many options to control your web interface. Notice the tabs at the top of
42:32this box. These open other dialog boxes to enter more instructions. Let's take a quick look at them.
42:38The first tab, General, is already active. The first area, Multimedia, allows you to choose what
42:44kinds of effects you want active as you surf the web. You can choose to turn pictures, audio, and live
42:50video files off or on by checking or unchecking the little boxes next to that item. Turning these off
42:56will allow you to access websites quicker as you will only be downloading text. The advantage of this
43:01is you don't waste time at pages you really don't want to see, and when you reach a site you do want
43:06to see, you simply turn these features back on. Suzanne, deselect all these options for now so we can see how
43:12this works when we are finished looking at the Prefs area. Next we can change the colors of our text and
43:17background. Click on the box next to Use Windows Colors and our text colors turn to black. Click once
43:24on that and we get a color palette to choose any color we want. We want to use the default colors so
43:29close this box and reselect the Windows option. The next area, Links, works pretty much the same for
43:37choosing text colors for displaying sites you've accessed or the color of the hypertext links. We'll
43:43leave the defaults here also as well as the toolbar settings. Click on Navigation.
43:53Here you can select what web page you would like to display when you first enter the web,
43:57as well as a favorite search page and quick links to other pages. If you have a favorite site you want
44:03to go to, just enter that site's address in this box. It now displays AOL's home page. Let's enter AOL's
44:12search page. Suzanne, click just after the M in com, add a forward slash, the word search,
44:19and another slash. We'll see how this works a little later in this lesson. At the bottom of this box is
44:25History. Suzanne, click on View History. If you go to a site and can't remember where it was, you can always
44:30come here and review where you have been to find it again. You can change the number of days you want
44:36this function to be active. They will automatically erase after those days. I won't talk about all the
44:42rest of these tabs. Some are pretty complicated concepts and others are pretty self-explanatory.
44:49There is one more area I would like to show you. Click on the Advanced tab. In the middle of this box,
44:55we see temporary files. As you visit websites, AOL's and other browsers create a place to store
45:01web pages, graphics, and other files. In this case, it's the temp directory. Having these files saved
45:07allows quicker access to sites you've already visited because the information on that page is already
45:12saved and will display quicker. Click on Settings. Notice you can empty your folder of these files right
45:19here if you wish. We see a bar we can change that specifies how much disk space you want to delegate
45:25to these files. If you are low on disk base, you may want to lower the amount of disk base used.
45:31Let's change ours to two percent. Click on View Files.
45:44Here is all our temporary files and as you can see, there are quite a few built up on our computer.
45:49We could go through all of them and figure out which ones we want to keep and delete,
45:53but seeing as we have over 1800 of them, it may be time to clear them all out. Also, since we changed
45:58our disk space setting, we won't get as many of these files in this folder from now on.
46:03Suzanne, click on Edit and select All. Now click on File and Delete.
46:11There, all those files are gone and we start fresh adding new ones as we surf the web.
46:22OK Suzanne, click OK and OK again to close the press window.
46:27Now, back on the Eastwood photograph page. Choose another picture.
46:31Notice we still have text where we can read all about this site and that the picture is now
46:40represented by a small graph that tells us where the picture would go.
46:44Now open the press window again and reselect all the options we turned off in multimedia and click OK.
46:49Now click the Reload button.
47:04The photograph page opens. Now reselect Rawhide.
47:07Notice the same page loads, but a little slower, and we now see the pictures.
47:17I want to mention one other problem with having these functions turned off.
47:21Many websites also contain graphic buttons for links to other locations.
47:25If you can't see them, you might be missing some obvious choices you won't see with just text.
47:30Now click on the Home button. Remember, we entered AOL's search address as our home in the Prefs window.
47:36We are now taken to that page.
47:37Suzanne, see the down arrow next to the address box? Click on that.
47:41This is another way of looking at the history of sites you've visited.
47:45The difference between this and the Prefs history is this only displays the sites you've visited
47:49during your current session. When you exit the program, it all goes away.
47:54Clicking on any of these will take you back to that address.
47:57Click on the manwithnoname.com address and we are back at that site.
48:05Now pull down the Go To menu item and choose Favorite Places.
48:11This box allows you to store the webpage as an object file, so you can quickly go to this location
48:16or any location you enter here. We have several locations already stored.
48:20Click on Add Favorite Place. This box allows you to enter a title and address to your favorite place,
48:27but you must know what that address is.
48:29Suzanne, close this window and click on Add Folder.
48:34You can add your own folder here. This is good if you have several people using your computer
48:39and each person could have their own folder of Favorite Places or you could have folders for
48:43different categories of subjects. Click on the Close button, Suzanne, to close the folder window
48:48and then close the Favorite Places window. Now click and hold the Window option on the menu bar
48:53and drag down to select Add to Favorite Places and Release. This is an easy way to add a location to
48:58your favorite places. Remember to only do this when you are actually in the location you want to keep
49:03for quick access. Click on Favorite Places again.
49:10Now we see Eastwood listed in our folder. These locations are also easy to delete. Just highlight it
49:16and click the Delete button. This is really a handy tool. When you find a page you know you want to
49:21revisit, just add it to your Favorite Places. When you want to go to that page in the future, just open
49:26this box. Double click on your choice and you're there. Now close this window. By the way, if you're
49:31using another browser, Favorite Places are usually referred to as Bookmarks. Back to the options on our
49:38web page, you see we have a Search button. This opens the same AOL Netfind page. Anytime you want,
49:44you can enter a search mode by clicking this button. Also remember you can change this button to open
49:49other search pages in the press window. The only thing left here is Help. You can find Help on
49:54anything and in just about any place you visit, in AOL or on the internet. Anytime you see a file marked
50:01Help or FAQs, that's Frequently Asked Questions, it may be a good thing to look at. Many people have the same
50:07problems using the internet, so you can be pretty sure that someone has already asked the question you are
50:12thinking of. One more icon I'd like to point out is the printer. Just click this icon while in the site
50:17you'd like to print and you'll have a hard copy of that page. So far we've just used Hypertext links
50:22to surf the web. Now let's see how to use Search Tools. We could press the back button until we get
50:32back to the search page or press the search button, but since we've put it as our home page in the
50:37preferences box, just click on the home button, Suzanne. As I mentioned before, Search Tools,
50:42sometimes referred to as search engines, allow you to type in key words or phrases and the program
50:48will scour the web looking for matches to your query. You type these words into this box and click
50:53on Find or Search. AOL's search page called NetFind uses Excite as its search engine. Since the internet
50:59has so many other search engines, let's do a search to see if we can find them. Type Search Engines
51:05Guide in the box and click on Find. AOL's NetFind starts searching the internet. Once loaded, this page
51:16displays the first 10 out of over 3 million sites that have found meeting your search words. Notice
51:22the 89% mark next to the first site. That is saying this program is 89% sure this is what you are looking
51:29for. Scroll down the page and we see other sites suggested by the search program. Notice we get a
51:35title of that location, their web address and a small description of the site. You can check the next
51:4110 sites by clicking on the next 11 to 20 item at the bottom of this window. You could keep doing this
51:46until you've checked all 3 million sites. I think it would be a better idea to type in different search
51:51words to limit the sites found. Suzanne scroll back to the top. Let's go back to a browse method and click on
52:02the second selection, the searcher, to see what we get. This site may have what we are looking for.
52:10It looks like it's dedicated to search engines. Scroll down the page to see what we find.
52:17First we see several different search engines that allow you to type in what you are searching for
52:22and use whatever search engine you want. They all work a little differently so you may want to type in
52:26your search criteria into several of them to see what they find. Scroll down a bit. Here we have
52:33direct links to the search engines home pages and a little description of what kind of searches they
52:38are best for. Scroll back up and let's try another search engine to see what happens when we search for
52:44more search engines. In the AltaVista box type search engines and click on submit.
53:00Well this search found about a million sites matching our query. Let's check out the first one on the list.
53:05Scrolling down this page we find icons that are links to several search engine home pages. One of the most
53:16popular is Yahoo so let's select that and see how it works. This takes us to the Yahoo home page. Are you
53:24starting to see how these hypertext links can take you to another page on the same site or in this case to a
53:30totally different site? Notice we have several areas of interest that we can start choosing on a variety
53:35of subjects but since we are looking at search engines let's do another search. By the way if
53:40you could not find the same web pages to get to this site just type yahoo.com in the address box and
53:46press enter to join us here. In an earlier internet lesson we searched for information about NASA's
53:51mission to send a probe into Jupiter's atmosphere. Let's see what information we can find on this now.
53:56Suzanne click in the search box and enter NASA and click search.
54:07Whoa it seems we have 1146 sites found with that search criteria. We could scroll through all of
54:14them until we find the one we want but let's see if we can get better results by being more specific.
54:20Click the back button once. Search tools look for matches to words like the finder does in your windows
54:25program. The more description you can enter the better your chances of finding that information.
54:30Suzanne we know the name of that mission was Galileo so enter a space after NASA and type Galileo
54:35and press the search button again.
54:45That's better we are now told eight sites were found meeting our criteria. Remember if you don't get good
54:50results in your searches to go back and enter more information or try another search engine. Now we
54:56are back to a browse method. Suzanne scroll down the page to see what we have. Now click on Galileo project
55:02information. Now we have a picture of the probe entering Jupiter. We could print it out if we wished.
55:12Scrolling down the page we can see a lot of information to read about this mission. Physical information,
55:18mission overview, science objectives, scientific first of the mission, plus much more. We already
55:24know how to explore the menu options on this page and you may want to come back later but for now let's
55:29use our search tools to find information that I promised on other service providers. Suzanne go back to
55:35our search screen and in the search for box type internet service providers
55:49a space and CompuServe and Prodigy
55:55and click on search. Let's see what we can find out about these services.
56:05We have one match to our query. Let's choose online connection.
56:14Scroll down this page a bit.
56:18Well it seems the information we need is all here and I might add put together by a 17 year old boy named
56:24Jay. Suzanne click on online services.
56:27Now we have icons of the larger service providers. Clicking on any of their icons will take you to pages
56:38that explain everything about their service. You could actually download their software and sign on
56:43right on the spot. Click on pricing plans.
56:52Scrolling down this page we find information on each provider's rates.
56:55What free hours they offer new users and what additional hours cost. Suzanne click the back button.
57:04For those of you on the web you can further explore this page on your own.
57:08Find the phone numbers and deals being offered. For those of you who are not online and want
57:12additional information here are the 800 numbers for these services. Click the back button again and choose
57:19national ISPs. Now we get a list of more providers. You can look at their features to see what they have
57:29to offer in price comparisons with these services. Click back twice to get back to our original search results.
57:37This time select business and economy companies.
57:47Scrolling down this page we see quite a lot of providers.
57:53These are usually just access providers that don't carry a lot of bells and whistles with the program.
57:57But do offer one-time monthly charges for internet access that may be considerably cheaper than the
58:02major providers. Some are set up for business use while others offer you business opportunities
58:07if you help sell their services. You could spend a lot of time checking them out. But if internet access
58:13is all you want this is the place to look.
58:15Well before I let you go I suppose we ought to figure out how to log off america online.
58:20That should be easy professor. Since this is a windows based program can I pull down the file menu
58:25and see if there's an exit command? Sounds reasonable to me Suzanne. Give it a try.
58:36And we are returned to our windows screen. Well that brings us to the end of this lesson.
58:40Be sure to check out my level two and three lessons on learning the internet
58:44where we delve further into what the fantastic world of the internet has to offer. Remember
58:49there's always more you can learn from me the video professor.
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