4.0 Newbies, Meet the Web
In this section you'll be introduced to the World Wide Web (WWW) also known
as "the web" or "the Net". To access the web you will
use the Netscape Navigator, which is what is called a web browser.
One reason we introduce you to the web early in the tutorial is that you'll
find that using the web browser reinforces many basic computing skills
such as navigating the mouse within an application, making menu selections,
entering text in text entry boxes, choosing options from a listbox, using
the scrollbars to scroll windows, and a lot more. As a side effect, you'll
learn how much fun it can be to "surf the web" and you'll learn
to access all kinds of helpful information.
It should be noted that the web is a live, ever changing phenomenon. The
examples given in this tutorial may no longer be 100% accurate by the time
you read this but they should still server well as examples.
4.1 Introduction to the web
So what is this World Wide Web (web) I keep hearing about? You can think
of it as a system of documents interlinked together (think of a spider
web) around the world. The web allows us to communicate information and
ideas with others in a much richer way. In addition to displaying text,
the web has the ability to distribute information in many forms including
(but not limited to) color graphics, photos, sound, and even video; all
within your web browser.
Some say that the web may well rank with the seven wonders of the world.
Once you spend time on the web, you'll begin to feel like there's no limit
to the amount of information you can find. You could spend hours entertained
by the sheer variety of things people post of their websites.
Briefly, the way it works is that web pages are files stored on servers
connected to the Internet all over the world. Just like many other Internet
services, the web is what is known (in techno-babble) as a client-server
system. Your workstation is the client, and the websites you access is
the server. As an example, if you view the picture of the Mona Lisa at
the Louvre's web site, the browser running on your workstation (the client)
requests the web page from the Louvre's server in Paris. The Louvre's server
answers the request by sending the page over the Internet to your local
workstation. This happens all with the click of a button. Isn't
technology wonderful?
4.2 Introducing the Netscape Navigator
As mentioned earlier, the Netscape Navigator is a web browser. The Netscape
browser has the ability to incorporate formatted text, color, background
images, photographs, sounds, and video all within the same page. Although
the Netscape browser is not the only browser installed on our system, it
is the browser of choice. In fact, at the time of this writing, the Netscape
browser is the browser of choice by a majority of Internet surfers (unless
of course you work for Microsoft).
Enough talk, let's get this show on the road.
4.2.1 Starting and Exiting the Netscape browser
There are a few ways to startup the Netscape browser. One way to run it
is by simply choosing it from the Network Tools submenu off the
Workspace Menu. You'll remember that the Workspace Menu is
the pop up menu you can access from the desktop background. Another way
to run the Netscape browser is to issue the command netscape
from an Xterm window.
When you startup the Netscape browser for the first time, you may see some
extra information windows letting you know that its creating new local
configuration directories and files for you. This is usually a one time
process.
Like everything else, there's more then one way to exit or quit the Netscape
Navigator. As discussed in an earlier session, you can quit the browser
by double-clicking the window menu icon located on the left hand side of
the title bar. The preferred way to quit the browser is to use the mouse
to choose Exit from the File menu.
Once Netscape is up and running it should load the Department's home page
as the default web page (see Figure 4.1). If you've run Netscape before
and have reconfigured its startup page you may get a web page different
then the Department's home page.
4.2.2 Window Layout
When the browser is up and running you'll see many different buttons and
menus. Lets go over some of what you're seeing on the screen.
At the very top of the application you'll see the menus; File, Edit,
View, etc. You'll find many helpful options listed within these
menus, some of which will be covered later on. Just below the menus you'll
see the Toolbar buttons; Back, Forward, Home, etc.
The toolbar buttons are like shortcuts to some of the more common options
available in the menus. You'll find yourself using the toolbar buttons
often. Here is a quick summary of what they do:
Back
Displays the previous page in the history list. A history list references
a hierarchy of pages you've already viewed.
Forward
Displays the next page in the history list. When you use Back or
a history menu item to retrieve a page, using Forward gets the proceeding
page. Forward is only available after you use Back or a history
item.
Home
Displays the home page designated in the General Preferences|Appearance
panel. The default is the Department's home page.
Reload
Redisplays the current web page, reflecting any changes made prior to the
original loading. Netscape checks the network server to see if any change
to the page has occurred. If there's no change, the original page is retrieved
from the cache. If there's a change, the updated page is retrieved from
the network server.
Images
Loads images into pages. This is useful when the Options/Auto Load Images
menu item is unchecked and icons have been substituted for images. (not
the default)
Open
Lets you type in a URL to display the specified page in the content area.
Print
Prints the content area of the current web page. A dialog box lets you
select printing characteristics.
Find
Lets you specify a word or phrase to locate within the current web page.
You can specify case sensitivity and search direction. If a match is found,
the text is selected and displayed.
Stop
Halts any ongoing transfer of page information.
Just under the toolbar buttons you'll see the Location field. The Location
(or GoTo) field identifies the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of the
website you are currently browsing. The URL can be considered the address
of the current web page. You can also type in the Location field to specify
a new URL to go to. Just under the Location field you'll see the Directory
buttons. These buttons are tied to Netscape specific websites that provide
an online directory.
To the right of the Location field and Directory buttons is the Status
Indicator. The Status Indicator displays the Netscape logo but also is
used to show whether the browser is active or idle. When the Netscape browser
is actively retrieving a web page or accessing a network site, the Status
Indicator will animate the Netscape logo. When the browser is idle the
logo is not animated. You'll also notice the Progress Bar at the bottom
of the browser. The progress bar animates to show the progress of the current
operation. The bar shows the percentage done of document layout as a page
loads and the percentage of kilobytes loaded as an external image loads.
Just below the Directory buttons, and what should take up most of the space
in the application, is the Content area. This is where the actual web pages
are displayed. You may notice a scroll bar to the right of the content
frame. You can use the scroll bar to scroll up and down through web pages
that are longer then what will fit in a single frame. What you see in the
content frame depends on what web page you've retrieved. At a minimum you'll
probably see formatted text and pictures. Text that is underlined (and
probably a different color) is what is known as a hypertext link, or just
link for short. Links are what the web is made of.
4.2.3 Demonstration by Example
We could talk about the web till we're blue in the face but the best was
to experience it is by doing it. We'll start off with basic maneuvering
techniques and move on from there to the fun stuff. Note, as mentioned
earlier, the web is always changing and because of that you may find differences
between what you see and what is cited in the examples.
Let's start close to home. If you ran the Netscape browser for the first
time then you probably came up to the University of Florida, Department
of Statistics home page at http://www.stat.ufl.edu/ . If you don't have
the departmental home page up then you need to move your mouse pointer over
the Open toolbar icon and single-click it with the left mouse button.
An Open Location text entry box should pop up. You can click the
Clear button to clear the entry if its not empty already. Type,
http://www.stat.ufl.edu/ in the text field and
click the Open in browser button on the text box. You should see
the departmental home page load in your browser.
By now you're pretty used to using the mouse to click your way through
menus and on buttons, but now you'll
see that you can click words also. You'll notice on the Department's home
page a link called Statistics Virtual Library. Use your mouse to
click on the link and see what happens.
If everything worked as it should, you should now see the Virtual Library
of Statistics web page (Figure 4.3). You've probably already noticed that
you can't see the whole page. Web pages have no specific length so sometimes
you can't see the whole page all at once.
On the right hand side of the Netscape frame is a scroll bar that allows
you to scroll down the page. To scroll down the page move your mouse pointer
over to the bottom of the scroll bar where the small down arrow is located.
Use the left mouse button to single-click on the down arrow. You should
have noticed the web page move down one line. Go ahead and click the arrow
again but this time hold it down. You'll notice when you hold it down that
the web page scrolls continuously down the page until either it reaches
the bottom or you let go.
Sometimes even clicking and holding down the scroll bar arrow can be too
slow if the web page is really long. Another, faster way to scroll through
the web page is to grab the scroll bar button sitting in the middle of
the scroll bar. If you click and hold the mouse pointer on the scroll button,
you'll see that you can slide it up and down the scroll bar, moving the
web page up and down at a much quicker pace. By the way, in case you're
inclined to, you can also use the up and down arrow keys, and <PgUp>
<PgDn> keys on the keyboard to move up
and down the page.
Scroll through the Virtual Library of Statistics web page until you find
the Job Announcements section. In the Job Announcements section you'll
notice that there is a link there. Use the mouse to click the link.
If everything is works as it should, you should see the Statistics Job
Announcement page with a listing of various jobs that are available in
the field of statistics. Need a job?
For the sake of example lets say that you are actively looking for a job
in the field of statistics but you don't see a job here that interests
you. You could check back with this web page next week and see if any new
jobs have been posted. That sounds good but how are you going to get back
to this page again? You could follow the same path you did to get here
but a quicker, better way to do it is to save this page as a "bookmark".
Bookmarks save the location (URL) of the web page so that you
can easily access the page again in the future. Netscape's bookmark feature
is very handy. To bookmark this page simply use your mouse to select the
Bookmarks menu and click on the Add Bookmark option. If you
choose the Bookmarks menu again you'll see that the Statistics Job
Announcement page has been added to the menu. Next time you want to go
directly to this page, simply select it from the Bookmarks menu.
Now, scroll through the list of jobs and pick out a particular job that
looks interesting to you and click on its
link. When you do you should see a job description for that particular
job.
Again, for the sake of example, let's say that you're interested in this
position and you'd like to be able to print out the job description for
future reference. No problem. Simply move your mouse pointer of the Print
toolbar icon and click it. You'll then be presented with the Netscape
Print dialog box. Click on the Print button and the job description
should print to your default printer.
What if you want to see a different job listing? Many times you'll find
a link at the bottom of a web page that points you back to the prior web
page. Since there's no links on the job description web page to take you
back, you'll have to use the Back toolbar button to take you back
to the job listings. Back will always take you back to the page
just prior your current web page. After pressing the Back toolbar
icon you should now be back at the Statistics Job Announcements web page.
Well that's all fine and dandy but how to we get back to where we started?
That's easy enough. There's a couple of ways to do that. If you want to
return to the default home page (the web page that came up when you first
started Netscape), all you have to do is to click the Home toolbar
icon. Another way to do it is to press the Back button repeatedly
until you return to where you started.
That covers the basic navigational operations surfing the Web.
4.2.4 Searching the web
Now that you know enough to move around in the Netscape web browser, let's
move beyond our network and explore the world.
With millions and millions (or is it billions?) of web pages sitting out
there all over the world, how can you expect to find anything? You could
spend hours surfing the Web, following links from one place to another
but that would take forever if you're looking for something specific. There
is a better way.
There are a number of tools to help hunt down information contained in
the web. There are both Internet Directories and Internet "search
engines". Internet Directories are lists of websites structured into
various categories and sub-categories. Internet search engines allow you
to input a search string that is queried against a large indexed database
of known websites. Both tools can help you find exactly what you're looking
for.
Let's demonstrate this with an example. Using the example mentioned earlier,
lets say we're looking for a picture of the Mona Lisa that's hanging in
the Louvre museum in Paris. First we need to access a search engine.
Go to the Department's home page by either pressing Home on the
toolbar or typing http://www.stat.ufl.edu/ in
the Location field. Look for the Lycos Internet Search link on the
home page and click it. If the link is not there then you'll need to press
the Open icon on the toolbar, press the Clear button to clear
the text field, and type http://www.lycos.com/
and click Open.
You should now be at the Lycos home page. Move your mouse over the text
entry field on the web page (Figure 4.4) and single click it with the mouse
to make the field active. Now we're ready to begin our search. Type in
the words...
in the text field and click the search button to begin the search.
Within a matter of moments you should receive the search results. What
you should see is a list of links sorted with the most relevant hits at
the top. Each result will have an excerpt of the content to give you an
idea what's there and how relevant it is to what you're looking for (see
Figure 4.5). Click around for a while and you should be able to find that
picture of Ms. Smiley Face (Mona) (see Figure 4.6).
Lycos is by no way the only game in town. There are many good search engines
available to help you find what you're looking for.
[see last image]
4.2.5 Helpful Resources
Now that you've had a taste of the Web, here are some URLs you might find
helpful:
Department of Statistics, University of Florida
http://www.stat.ufl.edu/
Department System Support and Information
http://www.stat.ufl.edu/system/
College of Liberal Arts and Science
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/
University of Florida Home Page
http://www.ufl.edu/
Altavista (Search Engine)
http://www.altavista.com/
Yahoo (Search Engine)
http://www.yahoo.com/
Lycos (Search Engine)
http://www.lycos.com/
