TM-Web

So how do YOU search the Internet and how will you teach your students to be effective searchers? DO NOT MISS these techniques to vastly improve your searching on the Internet and shorten the amount of time it takes you to find "the perfect information."

[|Better Searching.doc]

** Introduction **

** Think of the Internet as a town, complete with shopping center, museum, movie theater, and school. This may seem elementary, but it's a good way to put the online experience into familiar terms. **

** Like cars, computers need time to get from place to place--don't click too quickly if your response to your request is not instantaneous. **

** The cursor is your car, taking you where you want to go. The mouse is the gas pedal. **



** Browsers **


 * The browser allows you to drive around the Internet, but instead of driving a Ford, Toyota, or Jeep, you might be using Firefox, Explorer, Safari, or Netscape. **

//A browsers are the way your computer looks around the Internet//. Browsers "come and go" and are actually software that is created for the purpose of navigating around the four parts of the Internet. Netscape was very popular at one point in time, but few use it today. Internet Explorer (a product of Microsoft) continues to be a popular browwser, along with Safari (for the MAC) and Mozilla's Firefox. If you use only one of these browsers, you should download another and try it out. They offer different features and you may find one that meets your needs more than your current choice. If you download any of these, know that they will NOT download a virus, they will NOT spam your computer and they are COMPLETELY free.

**Search Engines**


 * If you don't have a specific destination (that is, a website you want to visit), but you know you want to shop or learn about something, a search engine acts as the Visitor's Center or Chamber of Commerce. Type in one or two words to get suggestions of where you might find just what you're looking for. Once there, the address bar (or URL: Universal Resources Locator) is the address of your destination. It is a UNIQUE address, just like the addresses in our town. **

A search engine is how your browser searches for information. There are so many search engines and the choice of which one to use depends on which interface and what attributes you prefer. But the MOST IMPORTANT thing to know about search engines is that NO one search engine searches more than 20% of the Internet. So, if you ONLY use Google (guilty, as charged), you are missing at least 80% of the Internet. So get out of your rut and see what else is out there. Change your search engine.

My current top 10 favorites: || At first, DuckDuckGo.com looks like Google. But there are many subtleties that make this spartan search engine different. DuckDuckGo has some slick features, like 'zero-click' information (all your answers are found on the first results page). DuckDuckgo offers disambiguation prompts (helps to clarify what question you are really asking). And the ad spam is much less than Google. Give DuckDuckGo.com a try... you might really like this clean and simple search engine. || || This search engine was founded by ex-Google staff. It is spartan, like Google and DuckDuckGo. But there are differences beyond the black background. Cuil uses a column format like a newspaper, and it offers both tabbled and columned groups to help your searching. The results are not ranked in the same currents events/popularity sequence that Google is known for. But Cuil.com can really be helpful in choosing research directions when you are just discovering a topic for the first time. || || Bing is Microsoft's attempt at unseating Google. Bing used to be MSN search until it was updated in summer of 2009. Touted as a 'decision engine', Bing tries to support your researching by offering suggestions in the leftmost column, while also giving you various search options across the top of the screen. Things like 'wiki' suggestions, 'visual search', and 'related searches' might be very useful to you. Bing is not dethroning Google in the near future, no. But Bing is definitely worth trying. || || Webopedia is one of the most useful websites on the World Wide Web. Webopedia is an encyclopedic resource dedicated to searching techno terminology and computer definitions. Teach yourself what 'domain name system' is, or teach yourself what 'DDRAM' means on your computer. Webopedia is absolutely a perfect resource for non-technical people to make more sense of the computers around them. || || The Ask/AJ/Ask Jeeves search engine is a longtime name in the World Wide Web. The super-clean interface rivals the other major search engines, and the search options are as good as Google or Bing or DuckDuckGo. The results groupings are what really make Ask.com stand out. The presentation is arguably cleaner and easier to read than Google or Yahoo! or Bing, and the results groups seem to be more relevant. Decide for yourself if you agree... give Ask.com a whirl, and compare it to the other search engines you like. || || Yippy is a Deep Web engine that searches other search engines for you. Unlike the regular Web, which is indexed by robot spider programs, Deep Web pages are usually harder to locate by conventional search. That's where Yippy becomes very useful. If you are searching for obscure hobby interest blogs, obscure government information, tough-to-find obscure news, academic research and otherwise-obscure content, then Yippy is your tool. || || Mahalo is the one 'human-powered' search site in this list, employing a committee of editors to manually sift and vet thousands of pieces of content. This means that you'll get fewer Mahalo hit results than you will get at Bing or Google. But it also means that most Mahalo results have a higher quality of content and relevance (as best as human editors can judge). Mahalo also offers regular web searching in addition to asking questions. Depending on which of the two search boxes you use at Mahalo, you will either get direct content topic hits or suggested answers to your question. Try Mahalo. You might like it enough to even become a editor there. || || Google is the undisputed king of 'spartan searching'. While it doesn't offer all the shopping center features of Yahoo!, Google is fast, relevant, and the largest single catalogue of Web pages available today. Make sure you try the Google 'images', 'maps' 'news' features... they are outstanding services for locating photos, geographic directions, and news headlines. || || Yahoo! is several things: it is a search engine, a news aggregator, a shopping center, an emailbox, a travel directory, a horoscope and games center, and more. This 'web portal' breadth of choice makes this a very helpful site for Internet beginners. Searching the Web should also be about discovery and exploration, and Yahoo! delivers that in wholesale quantities. ||
 * ==The Internet Archieve[[image:http://0.tqn.com/d/netforbeginners/1/6/K/L/internetarchive_logo.png width="129" height="67" link="@http://0.tqn.com/d/netforbeginners/1/0/K/L/internetarchive_logo.png"]]== || The Internet Archive is a favorite destination for longtime Web lovers. The Archive has been taking snapshots of the entire World Wide Web for years now, allowing you and me to travel back in time to see what a web page looked like in 1999, or what the news was like around Hurricane Katrina in 2005. You won't visit the Archive daily, like you would Google or Yahoo or Bing, but when you do have need to travel back in time, use this search site. ||
 * ==Duck Duck Go==
 * ==Cuil (pronounced 'cool')==
 * ==Bing==
 * ==Webopedia==
 * ==Ask (aka 'Ask Jeeves')==
 * ==Yippy (formerly 'Clusty')==
 * ==Mahalo==
 * ==Google==
 * ==Yahoo!==

**What's With the Dot (Domains)**

Every website belongs to a domain or group of like content websites.

For the most part, there are 4 MAJOR domains (although others do exist):
 * .com** at the end of a website address means that it is hosted by a commercial entity. Being a .com doesn't necessitate a bad thing. National Geographic is a .com and they are a rich source of valid information.


 * .edu** at the end of a website URL indicates the site is hosted by an institute of learning. This usually indicates a good source of information, but think about all those professors with a saracastic sense of humor (would you're students know the difference between humor and information?): http://www.ndc.edu/sutheimer/Default.htm


 * .org** at the end of a website URL indicates the site is hosted by a non-profit organization. This usually is a good sign, but consider this non-profit organization: [|http://www.martinlutherking.org] or [|http://www.whitehouse.org]


 * .gov** at the end of a website address indicates the site is hosted by the government (sometimes you find a .mil which was common to use with government military sites, but often now I see these obsorbed into the .gov domain).



**A few other things to know:**


 * A window is the view you see through your windshield. You can "change the view" by opening another window. Just use your mouse to click on a boxed or underlined word or phrase on the screen. Use the refresh or reload arrow in your toolbar to keep the information current. **


 * A link is a detour to take you down an unexpected road. **


 * The back and forth arrows put in forward or reverse. **


 * When you are finished, the X box in the upper right-hand corner of the screen ends your journey--at least for today! **