What are the World Wide Web (WWW), web sites, and web pages?
Q: What are the World Wide Web (WWW), web sites, and web pages?
A: The World Wide Web (WWW) is a network of information accessible via the Internet. Each person or organization who wants to share information on the WWW has their own web site, which is their home on the WWW. The address for this site is usually called a web address, which is a unique location on the WWW - similar to a person's physical address. Some examples of web addresses: www.yahoo.com, www.aol.com, www.microsoft.com, and www.tulane.edu. Usually, people refer to the individual pages of information on a web site as a web page.
One of the things that makes web sites so exciting is that they can link to one another. For example, the following text underlined and in blue links to the Payson Center web site. If you click on the text that is underlined and in blue, your web browser will take you to the Payson Center's web site. (If you are connected to the Internet.) Notice the "Back to Index" link below - that will take you back to the table of contents for this page. Click on it and see!
Q: How can I view information on the WWW?
A: To view information on the WWW, you will need Internet access and software called a web browser. In fact, you are using a web browser to read this information. There are two major web browsers in use today, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. If you look at the top of this window, you should be able to see which one you are using.
To visit a web site, you either click on a hyperlink or type its web address into the Address toolbar. The web browser also provides Back and Forward buttons so that you can browse through all the web sites you visited while using the software. See an example of how to use a web browser.
Q: How can I find information on the WWW?
A: Since there are literally several hundred million web sites on the WWW, finding just what you are looking for can be very difficult. To make this task easier, a special type of web site called a search engine was created. A search engine stores information about many of the web sites on the WWW and allows you to search through them by keyword. You simply go to a search engine, type in what you are looking for, and click search. See an example.
Q: Help! Why does my search return thousands of results?
A: Well, there are millions of sites on the Internet, so there probably are hundreds or thousands of sites talking about the topic you're looking for. However, in some search engines there are some tricks you can use to make your searches more specific. First, try looking to see if the search engine advertises an "Advanced Search". This type of search usually asks you more questions about exactly what you're trying to find.
Other engines allow you to modify search phrases to be more specific. For example, in Altavista, adding a + sign before the search term means the search term must appear in the search results, while adding a - sign before the search term means the search term must not appear in the search results. Also, you can search for phrases as well as keywords by enclosing the phrase in quotation marks. See an example.
Q: Can I download information and files from the WWW onto my own computer?
A: Yes you can. How you do this depends on what you are trying to download.
If you are trying to download a web page to your computer, use the Save feature of your web browser. It works just like the Save feature of most programs. See an example.
If you're trying to download a picture within a web page to disk, in most browsers you can move your mouse over the picture, right click, and select "Save Picture As". See an example.
If you want to download other types of files, like programs, PDFs or Word documents, you can usually right-click on the hyperlink to the file and click "Save Target As." Some types of files, program files for example, will automatically ask you if you want to open them, or save them to disk, when you click on them. See an example of downloading and installing software.
No matter what you are downloading, be sure to respect the owner's copyright!