Saving A Web Page and Setting Your Home Page

GoAnimate.com: Blog by boldtmike11




Ever come across a web page you wanted to come back to? Everyone has, and the easiest way to return to that web page is to add it to your favorites, making it just a click away. You can also print, save images from web pages, and email a web page. To print a web page, one must simply click the printer icon on the task bar at the top of the screen. In order to see how the printed page will look, one can go to the file menu on the top of the browser and select print preview. In order to email a web page you must click the page button on the upper right hand side of the screen and then select send link by email. To save a web page image, simply right click the image you desire to save and select save picture as. From here select where you want the file to be saved, and rename it if you desire. When saving images from the web, be mindful of copyrighted information.

One of the first things that many computer users will do when purchasing a new machine is change their homepage. This will allow you to decide what page your internet browser will default to when first opened. Some websites, such as Yahoo! include a button to make their web page your homepage right on their site. Some however do not. To make such a site your home page click the arrow next to the home icon. This will pull up a drop down menu. From this menu select "Use this webpage as your only home page." Now whenever you open your browser, it will default to this page.

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RSS Feeds

    Ever wanted to be notified whenever new content becomes available on your favorite website?  This is the function of RSS (Really Simple Syndication/Rich Site Summary).  Most popular browsers have a built in RSS reader so all that you need to do to access these feeds is to subscribe to them.  How do you that?  It's easy.
    One way to subscribe to an RSS feed is, in Internet Explorer, to simply click the RSS feed button, as depicted in the below picture.  Note that not all websites feature RSS feeds, if this is the case, the RSS feed button will be greyed out. 

    After clicking the RSS feed button, you will be brought to another page.  Once on this page, you simply click the  "Subscribe to this feed" button.  This will add the page to your list of feeds.

  
   Finally, to view your feeds, click the favorites button in the upper left hand corner of the screen.  Once in the favorites menu, click the "Feeds" tab.

    Another way to subscribe and view an RSS feeds involves a Google account and the use of the Google program "Reader".  To access reader, login to your Gmail account.  Then click the "Reader" link at the top of the page.

    Next, you will need to click the "Add a subscription" button.  Once clicked, a text box will appear.  Simple paste the URL of the site you wish to receive feeds from in the box.

    Finally, to view your subscriptions simply refresh your browser.  Reader will then automatically show you any updates in feeds.

   RSS feeds are incredibly useful for keeping up with the latest and greatest in constantly updating web content.  Knowing how to subscribe to them not only makes it easier for you to keep on top of the newest information, but makes it easier for you to access it and stay organized.

Browsing the Internet III: Web Browsers

A web browser is a program used to access and view web pages.  To open a browser you simply click the icon associated with it.  The most used browser today is Windows Internet Explorer.  However, the most popular doesn't always equate to the best.  In today's day and age multiple web browsers vie for a position on your machine, each offering similar but different features.  As previously stated, Microsoft's Internet Explorer is the most popular web browser in use today.  But why?  Simply, it is included on the Windows operating system, which is the world's most prominent OS, and cannot be removed from it.  For many users, it is the only browser they know.  While older versions featured severely flawed security and CSS processing, the most recent versions offer competence in both areas.  One of the main competitors for IE's throne is Mozilla Corporation's Firefox.  Firefox is a free cross platform (usable one Macs, PCs, and Linux equipped machines) which features an internal download manager, internal search, and source code viewing tool.  It is also considered much safer than IE and renders websites more "correctly" than IE.  Another rising contender is Apple's Safari.  Which is essentially a Mac's version of IE.  However, it offers much better protection than IE as well as integrations with quicktime and ad and image blockers. 

For more information: http://www.smooth-step.com/web-browsers/popular

Browsing the Internet II: Web Browsing Tools

One look at the top of a web browser for a novice internet user can be intimidating.  At first glance, there are a bunch symbols and areas to type.  What, you may ask, do they all do?  Firstly, at the upper right hand corner of your broswer, you will see two arrow buttons.  The one pointing to the left is the "back" button.  This button returns you to the page your were previously viewing.  You can go back as many pages as you have viewed in that internet surfing session.  The arrow pointing to the right is the forward button, which, essentially, undos the function of the back button.  It will return you to the page you just went back from.  In some browsers (Firefox in the picture example) there is a small arrow pointing downwards.  This is the "recent pages" button.  Clicking it will present you a list of websites recently viewed.  A little to the right of the recent pages buttons, you will see a button that looks like a house.  A click of the "home page button" will return you to your browsers default home page.  On the side of an already open tab, there is a small space to click to open a new tab which will allow you to keep multiple web pages open for click viewing.  In the upper right hand corner of the browser is the search box.  Typing in this box will send a query to your default search engine and return you with the search results.  Basically, it's a search engine in a small text box rather than a webpage. 

More info: http://www.ehow.com/how_2301861_use-web-browser.html

Browsing the Internet I: The URL

Ever wondered how your computer knows how to pull up the page you type into the address bar or when you click a link?  This is the job of either an IP address, a domain name, or a URL.  An IP address, or Internet Protocol address, is a number that uniquely identifies each computer or device connected to the internet.  A domain name is a text alias for a single IP address or multiple addresses.  The most commonly used method of finding a specific website is typing in the URL, or Uniform Resource Locator, which is a collection of characters that identifies a unique webpage. 




 

The first part of the URL is the protocol or set of rules used to transmit a web page from a server to a browser (http://).  The second part is the name of the server hosting the web page, usually containing a server's domain name.  Domain names are divided into top-level domains (TLDs) which identifies the type of company the website is associated with.  TLDs are at the end of the domain name in a URL.

 
More information on URLs:  http://websearch.about.com/od/dailywebsearchtips/qt/dnt0526.htm

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Net Neutrality

     After reading the Net Neutrality article my first thought was that I wasn't surprised.  Big businesses have always exclusively looked out for themselves and to have no concern about potential loss of customers due to increasing monthly fees for certain content is not much of a shock.  Especially considering the potential monetary gain.  It was a bit strange to me to read that Google, who had once been a leader in striving for net neutrality, jumped ship in order to placate Verizon, simply over the Android operating system. 
    My second thought was that it is absolutely ridiculous in my opinion for service providers to be able to charge additional money for users to access certain content.  Cell phone bills are expensive enough as it is, and still climbing in price; to add additional fees at this point would be insane, bills could be in excess of $150 a month for a single user.  As a smart phone owner I can say that without a doubt I would drop my data plan and simply return to a regular cellphone.
   Finally, I guess all I can hope for is for net neutrality regulations to pass so that companies cannot charge additional fees for content.  However, even if these regulations did come into effect, there is no doubt in my mind that service providers would jack up prices of other services to compensate for lost revenue.  Regardless of what happens in the net neutrality issue, the service providers will continue to make their money one way or another.

Chapter 1

The first chapter in "Discovering the Internet" included sections on defining the internet, using the internet, communications using the internet, up and downloading, logging on remotely, origins of the internet, how the internet came to be accessible to the public, and the roles of various internet service providers.  Some of the material seemed to be fairly common knowledge.  For example the sections on who is using the internet, net related abbreviations, and internet activities were things most people, who had taken a class relating to internet technology or not, would be fairly knowing of.  Some areas of the chapter I found interesting were the ones regarding the history of the internet.  Specifically I found it interesting to learn about the origin of ARPANET.  I also enjoyed learning about how it would gradually develop into the internet we know today.  Another section that I liked was the one regarding methods of connection to the internet.  I found this particularly interesting because I have been looking into purchasing a smartphone and I was curious as to how they were able to achieve internet access.  In my opinion this chapter worked very well as an introduction to web technology in that it covered basic concepts and ideas necessary to learning about web tech.  It also does a good job of introducing concepts I didn't know about in a way that is easily understandable.