THE INTERNET - PART 1

What Is The Internet?

The Internet, also known as "the Net," is a worldwide system of computer networks in which users at any one computer can get data from any other computer. It was conceived by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. government in 1969 and was first known as the ARPANET. The original aim was to create a network that would allow users of a computer at one university to be able to communicate with computers at other universities. A side benefit of ARPANET's design was that, because messages could be sent in more than one direction, the network could continue to function even if parts of it were destroyed in the event of a military attack or other disaster. Luckily, we've never had to test if it works.

Today, the Internet is self-sustaining and is used by hundreds of millions of people worldwide. For many Internet users, email has replaced the Post Office for short messages. You can also carry on live conversations with other computer users using Internet Chat. Currently, Internet telephone hardware and software allow real-time voice conversations (VOIP) including free long distance for voice calls between two computers.

The most widely used part of the Internet is the World Wide Web ("the Web") developed by Tim Berners-Lee. On most web sites, certain words or phrases appear in text of a different color than the rest and sometimes also underlined. When you point to one of these words or phrases by clicking the left button of your mouse, you will be transferred to the page that is associated with this word or phrase. These are called hyperlinks or links. Sometimes there are buttons, images, or portions of images that can be "clicked". If you move the pointer over a spot on a web site and the pointer changes into a hand, this indicates that you can click it and be transferred to another site.

With the web, you have access to millions of pages of information. Web browsing is done with a web browser. Currently, the most popular web browsers are Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Another excellent alternative is Opera. Depending on your connection speed, browsers can support such advanced features as animation, video, sound, and music.

By the way, all of these browsers can be downloaded absolutely free.

Vivaldi

Rating:

Currently, Vivaldi is the best browser available.  It has the best features of Chrome and Opera.

• Vivaldi has a color scheme option that can change based on the background and design of the website being visited.
• Vivaldi's strong customization caters to experienced users.
• Vivaldi comes with built-in ad blocker, pop up blocker and tracker blocker. 
• It also comes with a built-in e-mail client with IMAP and POP3 support.
• It comes with a built-in calendar to manage events in the browser.  
• Vivaldi Translate can instantly translate websites.
• Vivaldi is built using the Chromium core so extensions available in the Chrome Web Store can also be installed in Vivaldi.

Download Vivaldi here

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Search Engines

Google

There are literally hundreds of search engines on the Internet. However, there is only one that I use and that you will ever need....Google.

Google is a crawler-based engine, meaning that it has software designed to "crawl" the information on the Internet and add it to its database. Google has the best reputation for relevant and thorough search results.

Google's home page is clean and simple. There is more than one option on Google's home page. You can search for web sites, images, comments in discussion groups, news, shopping sites and more.

• Web - The default search engine.
• Images - Searches for images, maps, graphics, photos, or drawings.
• Video - Searches for short video files on the Internet.
• News - Searches for information gathered from thousands of news sources worldwide.
• Maps - An interactive map tool featuring driving directions.
• Books - If you're looking for text from a specific book, type in the name of the book (in quotes), or if you're looking for books about a particular subject, type in "books about xxx". Google will return results that contain content either in the book itself, and will offer links to Book Results at the top of the search page.
• Google Shopping - Searches for products for sale online.
• Groups - Searches for information, opinions, and recommendations from user groups.
• "I'm Feeling Lucky" - This button takes you instantly to the first search result returned for any query. For instance, if I type in peanut butter I go straight to Peanut Butter on Wikipedia. It's basically a shortcut so you can bypass the search engine results page.
• Google's accessibility features and products..

How to Google Search

1. Just enter a word, multiple words or a phrase and hit "enter". Google will come up with results that contain all the words in the search bar. Google doesn't care about capitalized words and will even suggest correct spellings of words or phrases. Google excludes common words such as "where" and "how", and since Google returns results that include all of the words you enter, there's no need to include the word "and", as in "milk and cookies". You can enter milk cookies.
2. If you want to look for web sites that contain just "milk" or just "cookies" you can use "OR" as in milk or cookies. If you're searching for the exact phrase you would enter "milk and cookies" including the quotes.
3. Try to be as specific as possible - instead of cars, try Chevrolet Impala.
4. If you're searching for a specific quote, type in "give me liberty or give me death". Google will search for the entire phrase just how it appears in between the quotes.
5. Use common words, such as "and", "not" and numbers ONLY if you want them included in the search. Google excludes them otherwise. If you want them included, use a phrase search by putting quotations around your search query, or include the common word by putting a space and a plus sign right in front of it. For example, if you are looking for the season five DVD of "I Love Lucy", type in "i love lucy dvd season +5".
6. Exclude unwanted results. If you want to narrow down your searches, place a "-" (minus sign) in front of words you want to avoid. For example, if you're searching for "three stooges films" but don't want any films starring Shemp, you would type in three stooges films -shemp (although Shemp rules).

Other Google Tools

• Google Calculator - Use Google's calculator by just typing in whatever calculation you'd like in the search bar. For example: a gallon in pints or 112.3 + 55.6.
• Google Definitions - There are two ways to get definitions from Google. If you type "define:cholesterol" (with the colon), you'll get a page full of definitions. If you type "define cholesterol" (without the colon), you'll get a list of web sites that contain definitions of the word.
• Google Finance - Business info, news, and interactive charts.
• Other search shortcuts:
  Phone number:(enter name and location) "phonebook: John Smith NJ"
  movie:(search for showtimes - enter title and zip code) "movie:superman returns 08902"
  stocks:(get a stock quote) "stocks:ibm"
  weather:(get local weather - enter zip code) "weather:08902"

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