Send me e.mail click here    Return to the main course page Click Here
Do not let your questions go un answered. If you can not find something you need contact
me right away. Remember- you need not have a computer to do the exercises and to fully
benefit from this course- check in with your local public library!

Goals and Objectives:

This course is designed to provide all students with the ability to use the internet. No
computer ownership is required. Students are encouraged to use their local library
public terminals at which all of the course work can be accomplished without extra charge.
Goals and objectives described in lesson one will continue.

1. Given the completion of this lesson the student will know how to utilize the functions
    of the Netscape Browser so that they will be able to accurately adjust settings, clear the
    cache file and operate the web page editor, news reader, mail box and be able to
    accurately complete main screen tasks.

2.Given a review of the Yahoo web based e. mail program students will be able to accurately
   and completely utilize all of its functions to add attachments to, organize and send e.mail.

3. Upon completion of a basic orientation to the USENET news groups students will be able
    to subscribe to news groups, compose news posts, respond to news posts and send e. mail
    to news posters both via the Netscape news reader program and the web based Deja News
   service.

4. The student upon obtaining a basic outline of a basic web page structure will understand
    the basic structure and nature of  web pages so that they will be able to accurately add
    links, images and text to a web page and learn to spot errors in html structure.

5. Upon completion of this lesson the student will be aware of basic internet conventions
    of on line behavior so that they will be able to function politely on line.

6. Upon completion of this lesson students will have composed a web page accurately
    and completely using the web page editor and will have saved the web page to disk
    and or uploaded the page to a host computer.

7. Upon completion of a basic orientation to images students will know how to efficiently
    prepare images for web page use and how to insert an image into a web page.

8. Students will have an opportunity to practice techniques covered in the class so that
    upon completion of the lesson their basic questions can be generated and answered.

9. Upon completion of the course students will know of ways to expand their available
     web page space and web presence via links to helpful web pages and service
     providers.

10. Upon completion of this lesson students will have successfully downloaded a program
      from the WWW    to the hard drive and will know how to unzip and execute the program.
 

Return to  the Top

Using Netscape

Netscape Navigator  is a program. It is a type of program called a web browser, however, it also comes with other programs combined with  it such as: E.mail Program, Web Page Editor, News
Reader  depending on how the program you have obtained was configured.

I discuss Netscape Navigator  because it is a good and popular browser, used in our
class laboratory and in the local public libraries. There are many other browsers. I would refer you to your
operating instructions or to the browser's own web pages for guides to using them. I use a
variety of Netscape Navigator called Netscape Communicator at home. I have been quite
happy with this product.

There are many places on the web to go to evaluate web browser programs my favorite
site for this purpose is: http://browserwatch.internet.com/
As with any program it is good to search around for several opinions. You may download
Netscape Navigator in a variety of forms from: http://www.netscape.com..Your choice
of configuration will be determined by your operating system,  the amount of space on
your hard drive and the functions you wish to use the program for. For those with less disk space
I would recommend Netscape Gold.It is smaller than the large Communicator package and contains  a good web page editor.  Be sure to select the correct version for your operating system and computer. You need not delete your old Netscape files before you upgrade  to a new version.
Check back with the Netscape site to check for upgrades and changes. These happen frequently.

For our purposes we should all know about the following functions:
(each version of Navigator will have slightly different ways to accomplish the functions listed below.
However, they will be there somewhere. Simply explore the drop down menu options on the tool bar.)

Preference Settings:

In order to send mail and personalize Navigator to work with your internet provider and to
clean the cache it is necessary to work with the preference settings.  The screens for these
can be located in communicator by going to the edit menu then selecting edit preferences. In
earlier Navigators they will be listed under options.

Go from menu from menu to menu entering your personal information. If you do not understand
a menu item leave it alone or contact your internet service provider to ask how the form
should be filled out.

Perhaps the most important function listed in the preference area is the clean cache function.
When Navigator goes from page to page it saves all of the information, web pages and images
on the hard drive in files called cache files. Because it does this Navigator is able to go back
and forth between pages visited. Sometimes the two cache files become over filled. When this
occurs Navigator can no longer download information and your hard disk may become filled
up. Navigator generally cleans the cache files out however, when the program or computer crashes
this is not done.  Often Navigator fails for other reasons to clean the cache files out.  So....if
Navigator fails to operate properly or crashes be sure to clean the cache files.  This is especially
important when you are using Communicator and there are several identities in use. Each identity
has its own cache file and with several  identities this means that a large area of your hard drive
can be taken up with cache files. In order to clean your cache files off from  your hard drive select
edit then edit preferences and then advanced and then cache. Clean both sets of cache files and
enter ok.

It is always good to clean out your deleted mail from the mail program trash file as well as
periodically delete no longer needed sent mail as well.

Review the other settings on your own. Note that you can set the page which your browser
goes to when it loads. This is called a home page. Essentially you need to tell the browser
who you are, how to use your internet provider's host computer and how to use your login
and password to download and send mail. It also will need to know how to handle incoming
information- that is which program to use to process the files. Generally the default preferences
will be adequate for your purposes. From time to time you may wish to add helper applications
or plugins to process types of files which you have not yet processed.  Navigator will tell you
when you need a helper program and will sometimes help you to download that program from
the web.

Bookmarks
As you go from web page to web page Navigator can save the address of a page as a book
mark. Should you wish to return to the page you simply go to the bookmark menu and open up
the book mark file and click on the bookmark to return to that page. You can also search bookmarks for a topic.

Downloading and Saving
You may save absolutely everything you see or hear on a web page. You may also mail
the contents of a page to an e.mail address. You can also highlight and copy text from any
web page.

To save an image or to view an image simply click on the image with your right mouse button.
Up will come a menu with options relating to the image. To save an image click on the image
with the right mouse button then select save as and when the drive directory comes up  select
the drive and the file in which you would like to save the image.

To save or mail a web page select the file  portion of the tool bar.  Then select the appropriate
menu item. Note that you can save a web page or a frame portion of a page as either .html
(as a web page) or as .txt (as a text document). If you wish to use the page as text select .txt.

 If you wish to save a section of text from a web page click on it with the left mouse button,
hold the button down and drag the cursor down the text to be saved. When you have highlighted
the text required let the button up and the text will remain highlighted. Then go to the edit
selection on the tool bar and select copy (or control key/c) . Then all you have to do is open up your word processor program and select paste and paste (or control key/V)  the text in and save it as a document.

In order to save an audio file hit and hold down control key  and shift while  clicking on
the sound file link.

Associated Programs
By using the toolbar options you can switch from Netscape Navigator to the web page editor and to the mail program and news reader.

If you do not see an address bar in the Netscape window try clicking on the options menu bar
at the top and selecting show location. The bar should open. In it you type web page addresses.
If there is an address in the bar that you do not want click on it and highlight it. Then hit the backspace
key to remove it all at once. You can not type into the bar until you have clicked on it with your mouse
first. When you have typed in an address hit enter to send the browser there. Be careful- you must type
in addresses accurately.  If a web page does not appear either you typed in the address wrong or somewhere along the line a part of the internet is down. Try later. If a file or page not found message comes up
it is possible that the page has been removed and can no longer be reached. It may just be down being
worked on so it is appropriate to try back.
Return to  the Top

Putting Your e.mail Account to Work
E.mail is a wonderful tool. There are three things you will need to consider when using it.
1.How will you use e.mail at home via your comercial account  click here.
2.How will you use e.mail at a remote terminal with graphic browser and web access (public library) click here
3.How will you use e.mail at a remote terminal with non graphic access (lynx)click here
4.How will you maximize the potential of your e.mail account(s)click here

Using e.mail via your home account
There are many kinds of commercial account which may be purchased. Some accounts
are more flexable than others. The most flexable account to have is a ppp account. At the
present time you should try not to spend more than $100 a year for unlimited service with
web space. Accounts operated via a middleman service like AOL and Compuserve are
not quite as flexable but just so long as they get you to the web  you should have access
to all of the e.mail possibilities.

Remember that someday your home commercial account may go down or you may loose the ability to access it. So....be prepared for emergencies by learning how to use non graphical
browsers, the sailor lynx free dialup and other work arounds.  For travel you will want to be
prepared for all the types of public terminal you will find- some are more primitive than others.
You will also want a full service web based e.mail account from which you can send files
and access your other ppp accounts.

Essentially you need to be as independent as possible so as to be able to maintain your
connections.

To return to the top of this section click here

Maximize the Potential
Almost anything you can do on the web or on any other dimension of the internet can be done
via e.mail. It is a bit slower but if all you have is access to e.mail its how you must proceed.
Here is a great resource to find out how to use e.mail to access dimensions and functions of
the i nternet.  http://www.december.com/net/tools/index.html

By using e.mail lists you can keep in touch with friends or people with common interests. In order to
become a member of an e.mail subscription list you will need to register with the computer  which runs it.
You will generally send a message with the word subscribe to the host computer. The computer will
then send you a list of rules and proceedures which you should print out and save in a safe place. Those
instructions will tell you how to send the right e.mail message to remove yourself from the list. The computer will include in that message the address to use to send an e.mail to everyone on the list. This could be
hundreds and hundreds of people.

To find a list check these links:

• Directory of Scholarly E-Lists
• Liszt Directory of Email Discussion Groups
• Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists
• Search the List of Lists
• Tile.net List of Internet Discussion Groups

Using the Graphic Public Terminal (library via netscape)

Your e. mail account at Yahoo or based at any other web based provider,  can do wonderful things  The main page for yahoo  is located here http://www.mail.yahoo.com.

A Great advantage of the web based e.mail account  is that it saves you hard disk space.
You do not need a mail program and all mail stored is stored on the remote computer! It can also download
and read and respond to e.mail from your other  ppp  mail accounts. Another  great advantage is that
you can  use it anywhere there is a graphic browser- at a friends house or at a library for example. You also do not need to make an additional dial up call to access your mail when away from your local area.

You can use your mail program  as your ordinary account but importantly you can use it
when you are a way from home to read and send e. mail via any terminal
which is on the Web. This means you do not have to make a long distance
call to your home mail server! You may have all of your mail forwarded
to your web based mail as well.

Even if you don't know someone at your remote location who is on line
it is easy to pop into a local library and use the web based mail there.
Just be sure that when using a public terminal that you log out correctly
when you are done.

Since the program is remote there may be a tendency to forget to
go and get your mail. Be sure to visit your mail box regularly and
clean it out. E. mail is immediate so take advantage of this trait
by reading and replying to your mail promptly.

Some Web Based e.mail Providers
When selecting a web based e.mail provider be sure to check into the services provided.
The ability to download mail from another account  is important as is the ability to
attach files and to set an auto respond message. I do not represent nor do I endorse
any one provider. To find more sources search yahoo for free-e.mail providers.

• Geocities Free E-mail
• Hempseed
• Juno Free E-mail
• MailCity
• MailExite
• McAfee Free E-mail & More
• Netforward
• Pop3 - Free E-mail
• Pronto Mail (family Edition)
• Rocket Mail
• theplace Mail
• Yahoo

1. Send e.mail-  after logging in select compose mail from the left hand menu.
  You should always enter a subject and a complete e.mail address. Click on
  each blank with your left mouse key and begin typing. When you are
  finished scroll up and click on send.

2.Send a Carbon Copy of your e. mail to another address- This lets you send a copy to
   another address while letting the other recipient know that the person is being carboned.
   You may carbon as many addresses as you want by simply putting one address in after
   the other with a comma in between each address. Put the addresses for carbon copies
   in the c.c. slot.

3.Send a Blind Carbon Copy of your e.mail- This is just like a carbon copy but the primary
   recipients do not know who else the mail is going to. This is useful if you are sending
   mail to a number of friends who may not necessarily want their e. mail address read
   by others.

4.If you check the little box below the header section you can arrange for a copy to be kept
   in your sent mail file. You should do this but remember it takes up space.

5. After composing your mail by clicking in the big white box you may attach a signature file
   to the bottom of your message. This is a portion of text which is like a letterhead. It
   is useful to put your e.mail address there as well as the address of your web page. You
   may jot down something interesting about yourself that is suitable for a wide audience.
   Keep it short! A short favorite quote is nice too. You can compose your signature file in
   the signature section under options.

6.Some people have the ability to read html coded messages. For them it is fine to use
  the option HTML tags allowed. However, still, many people can not read html in
  their mail and therefore an e.mail with html in it is an inconvenience which makes
  your message very hard to read. If you know someone who receives and reads html
  then you can  make your messages colorful with all of the links and graphics of a web
  page!  By clicking the html preview button you can see how the html code you have
  written looks and then make any necessary adjustments.

7.Your mail program lets you send files from your hard drive no matter what they are.
   This is useful when you want to send reports or pictures. Consult the size limitation
   first. Read the file size from your windows explorer or program manager. BEWARE!
   attachments are great but make sure that the person you are sending a large file to
    knows it is coming. Send them an e.mail and get a confirmation. Attachments
    can fill up a mail box causing other mail not to be delivered. They also take a while
    to download. Consider putting large images up on a web page server for convenient
    download at your correspondent's convenience. The best way to add an attachment
    is to have the program browse your hard drive. Simply change drives until you get to
    the right one then go to the right folder and click on the file. It will then be attached.

8. When you are done you can click on spell check and correct your spelling.

9.  If you feel you must shut down in mid letter simply click on save draft and it will be saved for
    later completion and mailing.

10.You can create a file and save messages in it. This is very useful for keeping your
     major areas of interest separate. Just remember that each time you save mail it
     takes up space.

11. In addition to the signature file the options section contains these valuable functions
    Signature

                         Preferences
                              Specify your outgoing name & reply-to
                              address. Configure how you want to
                              manage your messages.
 External Mail
 Configure Yahoo! Mail so that you can
 read mail from all of your different
 accounts through one interface.

                              Filters
                              Make Yahoo! Mail sort all of your
                              incoming mail automatically into your
                              personal folders. Even set-up your
                              account to filter out unsolicited e-mail

 User Information
 Change your Yahoo! Mail password and
 other user information

                         Yahoo! Messenger
                              Have Yahoo! deliver content directly to
                              your Yahoo! Mail Inbox

 Vacation Response
 Setup an automatic reply to let others
 know when you are on vacation.

                         Yahoo! Reminders
                              Let Yahoo! remind you of that birthday or
                              anniversary you're always forgetting

12. The search function is very useful. It lets you know where you have put things!
13. Perhaps the most important menu item is the exit option. Be sure to exit the program
      using this button for security reasons.

Enjoy your mail!
To return to the top of this section click here

Using the USENET Newsgroups
Usenet news groups are great ways to communicate and to utilize the assistance of others
on the internet.  Usenet newsgroups are accessible via your freenet account. Go to main menu
and then to communications center. You will want to create a fav list of your favorite groups.
To find which groups you might be interested in you can do a search. You will need to write
down the title/addresses of the groups such as: soc.culture.celtic
There are 55,000 groups with that number growing all of the time.
You do not have to have a special account to read the usenet news. You may go to
a web based news reader and search engine such as
http://www.dejanews.com
where you can search all of the many news groups for a word of your choice!
You may even look up a friend by name and see what they have been doing
in the news groups lately! At home you may register to write to news groups via dejanews, however
this can not be done at the library or public terminal. To use the public terminal to write to news groups
see below under public terminal instructions.

Each news group has a title-
for example:
soc.culture.celtic

The first set of letters groups the groups roughly by topic with each other
additional part making the topic more specific.
 

Using a newsreader program at home or at the Public Terminal

To have your news reader program (one advantage of the freenet account is that you do not need a news reader!)
take you to a news group you must first subscribe.You do this by going to a place in your program's set up menu  and adding the newsgroup to the list of groups it visits to pick up messages. In netscape you must first download
all of the titles on your news server. A news server is a computer server which holds
the group and its articles and is constantly updated throughout the day.  Not all news
servers carry all of the news groups. Contact your internet provider to find out the address of your news
server. This address needs to be inserted into the netscape preferences. If you do not have a news server with
your commercial account you can access one of the many open news servers.

One page  with a list of servers is here  click  http://w3.teaser.fr/~pdeschamps/1/nntp.html
Be  sure to select a server to which you can post. Select the one with the largest number of news groups.
Click on the address and netscape should open the news server. You can also enter the address in the
netscape preferences. Note that open news servers do not always last - sometimes they are closed.
If this happens return to the web source and select another. You can do this in the library.
 

Once you are subscribed to a news group you may request your server to open up that
news group and list all of the articles posted there.

The list will have the date and time of posting, the author's name and the title of the article.
Articles with the same title are said to belong to the same "thread".
The news program will group the articles by thread, author, or date. I like mine grouped by
date.

When you read a message you can either respond directly to the author via e.mail, respond to
the author and to the list or just to the list.
You may also post an original topic or your own message.
You may also post to other news groups while reading in one group  Simply add in the
group name in the appropriate slot in the mail header or place the name of the group
one after another

Most news programs will search all of the messages in a group for a word

In order to find out what news groups cover an area of interest to you go to
http://www.dejanews.com and search under that topic and note the groups
in which posters posted on the topic. Write those down then go to your news
program and subscribe to the group.

The newsgroups are important as they focus the people interested in a topic on line
in one place. You can ask a question there knowing that many people will read it
all over the world all knowing something about or being interested in the topic.
You will also find that new web pages and web activities such as listserves are
advertised in the newsgroups before you find them listed on the search engines.
Remember however....anything you write to a news group stays around for a long
time and can be looked up by anyone wishing to search!
 
 

Return to  the Top

Good On line Behavior

It is important to be careful on line- a few simple rules should help....

1.Try not to give out your phone number or house address.
2.Be polite at all times in your messages. All it takes is one or two complaints to have your
  account discontinued often with no refund.
3.Always screen children from the net. Check their e.mail first. Check out the web page. Use a filter or blocker.
4. Do not put children's school name on the net.
5. Never respond with anger if an e.mail upsets you just delete it. If you are really angry contact the complaints desk at the senders provider. ( usually abuse @provider address)

If you want to become  anonymous on line think several times. It is very difficult.
Ask me and I will tell you how long it will be before you are caught.

Check out the Annomizer for save surfing http://www.anonymizer.com/3.0/index.shtml
Remailer and other privacy issue solutions http://www.replay.com/remailer/
One of many Web screener/blocker software http://www.netnanny.com/
Return to  the Top

Upload/Download- Exercise

The World wide web is essentially a group of computers linked together which share files.
We will go to a page and download a file.
1.Open up the web browser.
2. Enter into the address blank
    /paupie.html
3. You will see an image on the first page. Click on that image with your right mouse button
    it will  pop up a menu which will have on it: save image as.  Click on that.
4. next insert a floppy disk into your computer.
5. go to the a drive in the program manager (list of files that pops up)
6. select a drive (the floppy drive usually a )
7. write a name for the file in the space below or leave it the same.
8. click on save. Soon the image will be on your floppy ready to use.

Once you have your geocities account you will be able to go to that account and upload files to it.
The process is about the same except you will be on line at the geocities program manager from
your account where you will browse your hard drive for files to upload.

Return to  the Top

What is a Web Page?
A web page frame for elements of code which give instructions to a web browser for
the management of files which make up the page. These elements are for example
links, images and text.

The web page tells the computer what to do. For an image what computer to go to
find the image file, how big the image should be, what kind and where it goes on the
page. Files organized by the page can be any where on any computer in the world.

Files can not be just any where on the server computer which holds them. They must
be in a special directory (think of it as a file drawer with a glass wall which can be
viewed from outside) Your provider will tell you the name of that directory and will
help you to use an FTP program to send the file to the computer. A good FTP program is: WS-FTP
-it is available here for free trial http://www.ipswitch.com/

When we use geocities we do not need fancy programs.(go to http://www.goecities.com to become a member)
We simply go to:
http://www.geocities.com/members/tools
and select the file manger. You will need your password and login.

You can also install web pages on your freenet account. Log on to your account and go to the main menu then
to the communications center and follow instructions. You can upload all files required directly via the telnet
connection.

To learn how to write the basic code for a basic web page click here.
For help with images click here
To Return to the top of the web page section click here
 
 

Basic Code

Remember when you write the web page code you should set your word processor to .txt format or use a text editor (such as notepad which comes with windows) You will need to save the page as (pagename).html   no ((s.
All web pages have to have a header and a footer they look like this:
(this is the header and footer from this page)
Header

In between the two essential elements of the header and footer you put the content of your page.

For our general purposes I will show you how to put the major elements of a page together.
There are many more things you can do but this will serve as an orientation.
 
 

You will discover many many Hyper Text Mark Up Language tags to use in your web
page design. Just remember that usually a feature must first be turned on and then
turned off when you want the effect to stop.

For example to center an image you would use the <CENTER> tag to start centering
and </CENTER> to stop centering.
A centered image would look like:

<CENTER><IMG SRC="http://www.bcpl.lib.md.us/~cbladey/guy/me.gif"></CENTER>

The basic principal of web page construction is to have a mirror image left to right and top to bottom where tags are concered . Remember to begin and end.

To look to see how effects are done go to the view menu of your browser window and select
view source. The source code of the page will then appear. You can select by clicking and dragging
with the left mouse button and then use control key and c to copy. Open up a word processor page
and you can paste that code effect in and save it for later use.
To Return to the top of the web page section click here

Color Codes

One word color codes to use instead of the numbers they still need "s

olivedrab   papayawhip ghostwhite darkgray darkgreen lightskyblue  seagreen lightslategray  seashell  darkmagenta lightsteelblue darkolivegreen  sienna bisque darkorchid honeydew

mediumturquoise deeppink deepskyblue darkturquoise darkviolet thistle steelblue mediumaquamarine  darksalmon   darkslateblue  mediumorchid darkred linen darkseagreen springgreen Lightcoral

mediumseagreen   midnightblue slategray darkslategray dimgray gainsboro mediumspringgreen darkviolet mediumorchid mediumpurple imegreen deepskyblue magenta slateblue  yellowgreen

Here is a great color code chart- http://cavalcade-whimsey.com/html/rgb.html
While useing composer (in netscape communicator) you change colors by going to format on the tool bar.)
To Return to the top of the web page section click here

Return to  the Top

To determine the size of your image and its variety you should first determine your purpose.
There should be a purpose for each image. If you are creating an artwork then a larger file
may be unavoidable.

There are two basic varieties of image- JPEG and Gif

The JPEG for our general purposes should be though of as being for clarity and color.
The Gif is good for special effects and is smaller.

The first thing you do with an image is open it in your graphics program.
Then you will want to consider size, and color depth.
Make the image appear as small as it can on screen. Your graphics program will have tools
to make the image larger and smaller. While you are at it work with contrast and sharpening
to make the image as clear as possible. You can use other tools as you wish.

Once you are happy with the way an image looks you are ready to reduce color depth.
Generally the number of colors in an image can be reduced from millions to 256 or even
as far as 80 without loosing quality.  Experiment making sure you save a copy of your
original image under a different file name and hit the undo button as you change your image
to take it back to  the prior step. You should save the image with the smallest number of colors.

With .gif images you can work with some graphics programs to  remove one color and
make all areas with that color transparent.
(a good program for this is L-view click here http://lview2.com to download)
Remember however that your background color will show through- but the effect
results in the image appearing to float in the air.

Gif images can also be made to load in two ways. The best way to have a gif image
load is in interlaced mode. In this mode the image loads overall rather than from the
top down.

Once you get your images reduced then up on the server you will need to have your
web page determine the size of the image. Image size paramaters should always be
included so that the image loads a bit faster.
To Return to the top of the web page section click here

Put a link to an image located on your hard drive on your page.
Make a hyper link to another web page.
Make a mail to form using your e.mail address.

If you get a geocities account (http://www.geocities.com)you can use their web page editor.
Even though there are now on screen web page editors you knowledge of
what is happening in the background is essential for creativity as well as for problem solving.
In netscape the web page editor is called: composer. It is a part of netscape gold and communicator.
With these programs you simply compose a web page as you would compose a letter on a word processor.
Remember that you must upload images and all of the parts of a page to the server before things will work.

To Return to the top of the web page section click here
Return to  the Top

Extra Credit

Go to   http://www.dejanews.com
search for a newsgroup that interests you and read a few articles.
If you are at your own machine you can arrange to post a response.

Go to http://www.angelfire.com
and apply for more web space!

Go to Geocities and do the same http://www.geocities.com

If you have a geocities account find out how to put a counter on your page!
Or maybe even a guestbook!

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Send me e.mail click here    Return to the main course page Click Here
Do not let your questions go un answered. If you can not find something you need contact
me right away. Remember- you need not have a computer to do the exercises and to fully
benefit from this course- check in with your local public library!

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