Internet 4-6

Wildcard (Constructively Broadening Searches)

( ) Using parenthesis to surround words that you want to group together with another operator. For example, Cleveland AND (Indians OR Yankees) Gives you references to sites that contain Cleveland AND Indians, as well as, Cleveland AND Yankees " " Makes the search utility treat the keywords literally; exactly as you type them (So watch your spelling) "Big Bend National Park"

Dictionary.com

( www.dictionary.com) is the online dictionary hosted by reference.com. One of its features is the ability for you to hear the spoken word via your computer's speakers so you know if you are pronouncing it correctly. The site is a metasearch site that will display results from many dictionaries. (see the online version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary and thesaurus too,

References.com

( www.reference.com) is a portal to an online almanac, atlas, business directory, dictionary, encyclopedia, legal resource library, literature library, medical library, thesaurus, and Web directory.

Topic Ring (Webring)

A Web site that is part of a topic ring (also known as a WebRing) is one site in a series of Web sites with a common theme. Many can be found at www.webring.org Web sites in a topic ring will contain links to the next and previous Web sites in the series. These rings are like a virtual community/neighborhood of similar sites.

Cookies

A cookie is a small chunk of data generated by a Web document, or server, and stored in a text file on your computer's hard disk. Cookies allow a Web site to store information on a client computer for later retrieval. Web sites use cookies to: Monitor your path through a site to track the pages you viewed or the items you purchased. Gather information that allows a Web server to present ad banners targeted to products you previously purchased at that Web site. Collect personal information you type into a Web page form and retain it for the next time you visit the site. Cookies are frequently used to remind a Web server who you are each time your browser makes a request. Suppose you use your browser to visit a popular music store. You search for your favorite bands, listen to some sample tracks, and select a few CDs you want to purchase. After browsing through 20 or 30 pages, you eventually go to the checkout page where you see a list of the cd's you selected.

Search Engine (Disadvantage and Advantage)

Advantage: It searches a large, diverse, and un-edited number of web pages for your keywords. Disadvantage: A large search engine can give you more results, or "hits," than you need

Pay-per-click or pay-per-view

All the commercial sites compete for the higher placement in the search results by bidding against each other for placement. The highest bidder(s) get listed first, second highest bidder listed second, and so forth. Your account is debited when (and if) the user clicks the link to visit your site. If the user does not click your link, your account is not debited.

Authorship Credibility

Any page that doesn't identify its author is useless for research purposes. The author's name should clearly be identified on the current document or on a page linked to from the document. The author's institutional affiliation and job title should be available, along with the phone number and complete mailing address.

Bibliographic Databases

Bibliographic databases are reference collections of research materials such as journals and books. They are assembled by professionals, indexed according to topics and keywords, and often have abstracts if not the complete text. Because of the massive amount of work that goes into creating these databases, there is often a fee to access them. University libraries subscribe to a number of databases that you can access from on or off campus if you are a student. UTA subscribes to many databases of online books, magazines, newspapers, and journals

Symbolic (Implied Boolean) Operators

Boolean Word Implied Boolean Symbol Example AND + Thanksgiving +pumpkin NOT - (sometimes !) Letterman -jacket OR OR (sometimes I) dog OR cat NEAR ~ pen ~Waterman

Protocols: SMTP or Mailto

Calls SMTP (the Simple Mail Transport Protocol) and enables a hyperlink to send an addressed email message

Directories

Directories, on the other hand, do not employ spiders/robots to ' actively harvest' Web information. Instead, they use human editors that review sites on the Web. The editors choose which sites are included in their database, where they think sites best fit within their Directory. Example: Yahoo (oldest and best known directory)

Protocols: File

Enables a hyperlink to access a file on a local system

Encyclopedias

Encyclopedias are also available online. There are many types of encyclopedias that can be found on the Web including general encyclopedias and those dedicated to particular topics. Some of the most popular are: Encyclopedia Britannica ( www.britannica.com) Encyclopedia.com ( www.encyclopedia.com) Information Please ( >www.infoplease.com) MS Encarta Online ( encarta.msn.com) Wikipedia ( www.wikipedia.com)

URL (Uniform Resource Locator)

Every Web page is based on a document that is stored on a Web server and identified by a unique address

Expert Inquiries

Expert Inquiries are direct requests for data from a recognized expert or body of experts. If you have thoroughly exhausted the online searching process and still cannot find what you are looking for, it may be time to contact an expert. Searching the Web will turn up sites advertising consultants who are more than willing to help for a fee. If you cannot afford these, you best bet is to search for e-mail addresses of experts at sites dedicated to public research and services. Those would include, hospitals, colleges and universities, research think tanks, and professional or academic organizations. Colleges and universities are excellent choices because of their mission to help distribute knowledge. If you contact an expert at a local institution you may be able to arrange a face-to-face meeting to obtain even more information.

FAQ (Advantages and Disadvantages)

FAQ sites, such as the Internet FAQ Archives attempt to authenticate FAQ documents, however, some FAQ's are quite out of date and contain bias and possibly misinformation. Always verify information found in a FAQ document with a reliable source.

Hit and Miss

Finding personal information... There are pay services that provide information such as what's in someone's FBI file, credit report information, criminal records, cell phone numbers, unlisted telephone numbers, driver's license information, marriage and divorce records, military records, and social security records. Have your credit card ready because these sites charge to access publicly available information and deliver it to you in a tidy report.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Question (or FAQ) Pages are compilations of the most frequently asked questions and their answers pertaining to a given topic. FAQ documents are usually very thorough and well organized as a result of much dialogue evolving online over time in special interest groups. If the same question is repeatedly asked, someone will post it to a FAQ page where others can find it and the answer at any time. You will find many FAQ pages at the Internet FAQ Archives (http://www.faq.org) There seems to be a FAQ page available for almost every topic imaginable. The authors of these documents to not charge for their work, even though some of them are professionals in their respective fields.

Protocols: Gopher

Helps in accessing a gopher server

Boolean Searching

How do you tell the search utility that you want to find Web pages that include references to keyword A and keyword B? How do you specify that it is not necessary for both keywords to appear in the results, as long as one or the other does? How do you search for one keyword or phrase while specifically excluding the other? How do you find two keywords or phrases in close proximity to one another? AND, OR, NOT, NEAR Should you need to use a stopword as part of a search, you can usually ensure that it will not be ignored by setting it off with capitalization and/or double quotes " ". Your Boolean operators should *always* be capitalized.

HTML (HyperText Markup Languages)

HyperText Markup Languages

HTTP: (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)

Hypertext Transfer Protocol)

Bibliographic Databases (Advantage and Disadvantages)

If you are doing academic research, you best bet for quality, reliable resources are bibliographic databases. In general, Web pages found through the public search sites can be published by anyone. A bibliographic database contains academic research which has been heavily edited by experts. These databases rely heavily on human effort, and because of this can be slightly out of date. It is difficult to stay on top of an index of thousands of publications that come out monthly or weekly. But advances in automation are making it increasingly easier to stay on top and current.

SSL

In an SSL (HTTPS) Web session, when a server asks for a certificate to verify you are who you say you are, the chosen certificate is saved in a memory cache on your computer. The chosen certificate can remain saved in memory cache until you restart your computer. If you leave your computer on for days at a time, and especially if others may use your computer, it is a good idea to clear the SSL cache after you have completed an HTTPs transaction.

Security Zones

Internet, Local Intranet zone, Trusted Sites Zone, and Restricted Zones

Stability of Web Pages

Is the page dated? When was it revised? Is it part of a larger site that has other dated materials? Do other Web sites reference the work at this address? Is the page a part of an institutional resource?

Protocol

It tells the browser how to deal with the file that it is about to open. One of the most common protocols you will see is HTTP, or Hypertext Transfer Protocol

Java

Java is a high-level programming language that has become a popular tool for adding interactivity to Web pages. Small Java programs are called Java applets. A reference to a Java applet can be embedded in a Web page. When you browser encounters the HTML tag for the applet, it downloads the applet then runs it. In order to run the applet, your computer needs some sort of Java Virtual Machine, which is simply a program that can interpret the instructions in the Java applet. Unlike ActiveX controls, which are downloaded on your computer's hard disk, Java applets are downloaded and stored in your computer's memory. They do not reside on your computer between uses, but need to be downloaded every time they are referenced by a Web page. When a Java applet prepares to run on your computer, it requests a specific level of permission to access files, folders, and network connections. If it requests a level of permission that is higher than you have specified, your browser will display a warning message that asks if you will allow the Java applet to have greater access.

Security Levels

Low Security, Medium - Low Security, Medium Security, High Security

Metasearch Sites (Advantages and Disadvantages)

Metasearch sites can make it easier for you to search several sites at once, but one shortcoming is that when it comes to more complex search requests using Boolean and/or symbolic keyword operators, the metasearch site does not necessarily adapt the search request for the various specific search sites it sends the queries to. A metasearch cannot possibly go deep enough into a database to get accurate results. Because it queries several different search sites, only about 10% of the data on every responding search site is successfully.

Metasearch Sites

Metasearch sites submit keyword search terms to several search sites and consolidate the results. Examples of metasearch sites are Dogpile (www.dogpile.com) and Metasearch (www.metasearch.com). Metasearch sites are portals/interfaces to many other search sites. The metasearch site's usefulness is in content comparison. The metasearch utilities often include features such as removing duplicate hits, and ranking or sorting results.

Symbolic (Implied Boolean) Operators

Not all search utilities support Boolean operators, but when they do, they choose whether to use operator words (AND, OR, NOT, NEAR, etc.), or symbols (+, -, ~) The symbolic operators are utilized just as their word counter parts. Following is a comparison. The Boolean words are followed by their equivalents at sites that use the symbolic operators

Citation

One notable difference between citing traditional material and citing Web-based resources is the actual form or style of the citation. Obviously, a Web page doesn't have a page number, or a publisher, or a volume number. As a result, the traditional styles used for footnotes or endnotes don't translate very well to the Web. Because widespread use of the Internet as an information resource is still relatively new, academia has not yet decided upon a single standard for citing online resources. There are several resources which suggest the best ways to document these resources. The two most common publication styles are American Psychological Association (APA) and Modern Language Association (MLA).

Protocols: Telnet

Provides the means for a hyperlink to open a telnet session on a remote computer

General References

Reference.com, Dictionary.com, Encyclopedias

Topic Ring (Webring) Advantages and Disadvantages

Rings are generally not searchable, but if you are interested in browsing, the advantage to a topic ring is that it allows you to quickly find related sites. The topic ring servers sort of an editorial function, ensuring the Web sites in the ring are active, and to some extent, reliable sources. Some Web rings have thousands of participant Web sites, while other are 10 or so sites small.

Session History

Session History, on the other hand, is kept only during your browsing session. That is, from the time you start your browser to the time you close it. When you click the Forward and Back buttons of your browser, you are tracing your session History. Session History is visible here in the Go To option of the View menu, as well as in the drop-down menus of the Forward and Back buttons. One of the Explorer Bars available is the browser's History. In that Explorer bar your browser's history is organized by day, week, month, etc. This Explorer bar can be very useful when you want to go back to a site you stumbled upon during a previous Web surfing session, but do not recall the URL of the site.

Site-Specific Search (Advantages and Disadvantages)

Since site-specific searches only search the site to which they are attached, they are far more limited that general search sites, but the results will be very specific without a lot of unrelated results. They can be very useful in your research approach. Find a good site using the general search sites, then further search that site with its own site-specific tool

Site-Specific Search

Site-specific search utilities search only the data on a Wed site. When you visit the Web site of a company you will often find that they have a keyword input box on the Web page for searching. Some sites will also have a Site Map which is an outline of the site's layout that can be used as a navigational guide.

Address Bar

The Address Bar is where you type URL's of sites you wish to visit.

Body

The Body is the section of the browser in which the primary content of an HTML document is loaded and viewed.

High Safety Settings

The High Safety setting allows Java applets the least amount of access to your computer's hard disk, network connections, and so on. This setting does not tend to disrupt normal computer operations, so it is a good choice for the cautious Web surfer

Local Intranet Zone

The Local Intranet Zone includes any Web sites that are provided by your local area network. This zone is important if your computer is connected to a business or school intranet. That is, a network that provides Web sites for internal access. Security settings for a local intranet are often more lax than are the settings you might apply to public Internet Web sites because the local intranet is usually considered more trustworthy. The Local Intranet dialog box allows you to specify which URLs will be considered part of your local Intranet Zone. The first option is defined as any sites that your network administrator sets up as part of your intranet.

Low Safety Setting

The Low safety setting allows Java applets to access all of the files on your hard disk, use your network connection, and access your printer. Few legitimate Java applets should require such access, so this setting is not recommended.

Medium Safety Setting

The Medium safety setting allows Java applets a moderate amount of access. If you use this setting, your browser will prompt you before allowing a Java applet to access your network connection or the files on your hard disk. Also, the Java applet cannot execute any programs or access any of your computer's system information without your approval.

Menu Bar

The Menu bar contains all the browser's built-in menus. The menus give you access to extended browser features and options to customize how the browser interacts with and saves the information it encounters on the Internet.

NOT

The NOT operators signals the search to filter out all pages except those that have a union of only dog.

Restricted Sites Zone

The Restricted Sites Zone contains Web sites from the Internet that you do not trust. These sites might have come to your attention from news reports of hackers, or they may have a reputation for trying to install damaging ActiveX components or Java applets, or they might tend to provide virus infected downloads. You probably would assign a high level of security to this zone to prevent harmful data from entering your computer.

Standard Buttons Bar

The Standard Buttons are frequently used features of the Web browser. The features are available in the menus of the Menu bar and also available in the form of quick-click icon buttons.

Status Bar

The Status bar, like the Title bar, can be optionally written to by the HTML document author. The Web browser also displays status messages in this region. You will often see the status message, "Opening page..." while the browser is sending and receiving requests to and from a Web server. You will see the status message, "Downloading..." as the browser is receiving return responses from the Web Server. When the browser has completed all its requests to the Web server, the status message, "Done" is displayed. The Status bar also indicates to you whether or not you have established a secure, encrypted, connection to a Web server. The padlock icon tells you the Browser has established a secure and encrypted connection to the Web server and it is safe to submit form data without worry of it being intercepted and read by a third party. The status bar will also indicate to you which security zone the domain hosting the page you are viewing belongs to.

Title Bar

The Title bar contains the title of the HTML document you are viewing in the browser, followed by the default text, "Microsoft Internet Explorer." In the example above, the title of the HTML document is "Google." The title is optional and defined by the documents author.

Trusted Sites Zone

The Trusted Sites Zone contains Web sites from the public Internet that you select because you believe they will not pose a security risk. You can add several sites to this list, and you would most likely assign a low security setting to this zone.

Expert Inquiries (Advantage and Disadvantage)

The advantages and disadvantages can be summed up in two words, human nature. Some are, by nature, extremely giving of their time and are thus helpful; other people are not. If you contact an expert who is not helpful, don't give up. Seek out another.

Cache

The files stored on your computer are collectively referred to as the local cache. When you revisit pages they are loaded from the local cache instead of re-requesting the data from the Web server again. Loading content from the cache is much faster than requesting and downloading the same data again from the Web server. This is also the feature that allows you to view pages you have visited offline.

Paid Inclusions (2 Types)

The first is as already mentioned: packaged offerings from the search site to you, the Web site owner, of varying levels of inclusion and placement within the search sites results, re-indexing of your site by their robots, editorial assistance, etc. All are designed to place you within the search site's list of search results, or "hits," (the list of sites returned after entering a search query). The second type of paid inclusion is designed to get your site listed within the "sponsored" sites section of the search results page.

Directories (Advantages and Disadvantages)

The major advantage, which can also be a disadvantage, is that the directories do not use robots for data retrieval and indexing. Web pages are indexed by humans. The advantage is that sites are categorized properly and you will be much less likely to find irrelevant sites in the results list. The smaller volume of pages indexed in a directory could be a disadvantage if you are a looking for something very specific and/or unusual.

Default file name (most common)

The most common default file names are index.html and default.html. (.htm is also a valid HTML file name extension)

Wildcard asterisk (General Rules)

The wildcard must appear after at least three characters of the keyword-for example, Net* The wildcard can act as a placeholder only for up to five unknown lowercase characters.

General Reference (Advantages and Disadvantages)

There are clearly more advantages to the general reference sites. They are free, or a fraction of the cost of traditional resources, and once you become familiar with them they are quite easy to use.

NEAR

This search finds references to "speech writing" (obviously), as well as statements like "The next time you're writing an important speech...." Most search utilities that support the NEAR operator are programmed to use a 10-word separator, though some will use more or less.

Fair Use

To reconcile this potential conflict, the copyright laws include a provision for "fair use." This exception allows people to quote "brief" passages from a work, whether traditional or electronic, for the purpose of comment, discussion, criticism, etc. This fair use exception also extends to pictures, images, and other visual works. As a student, you fall under this exception when you are using Web-based material for your class assignments or papers. You are not required to obtain permission to make a single copy of articles, book chapters, Web pages, and so forth, as long they relate directly to your classes.

Cookies: Security threat

To summarize, cookies are a potential threat to privacy because they: Do not inform users about the type of information they collect Might be vulnerable to theft Can be used without your permission Can be created by unidentified third-party Web sites Many people would like more control over cookies like, who collects them, what type of information they store, and how they are used. Let's find out how to control some aspects of cookies.

Protocols: FTP

Used to download files from remote machines

Search Engine (Owned)

WebCrawler is now owned by InfoSpace, a leader in branding MetaSearch sites. Infoseek is now a Disney company and is no longer an active "search engine." AltaVista (the Google of its day) is now a Yahoo! company. HotBot is part of the Lycos.com network, and Excite is part of the AskJeeves.com network. Both Lycos and Ask Jeeves are still active "search engines."

Search Engine (Top Ranking)

WebCrawler, Lycos, Infoseek, Open Text, AltaVista, Excite, and HotBot were all actively "crawling" the Web and indexing the data in their databases

Copyright

What does the assumption of copyright mean? Simply stated, the individual or corporation holding a copyright has exclusive rights to the use of the copyrighted material. The copyright holder, therefore, has the right to copy, distribute, perform, display, or sell the material. YOU DO NOT! These rights are "exclusive," meaning no one else can do any of these things to or with the material without the permission of the copyright holder.

Browsers Address Box

When you type a URL into the browsers Address box, you are requesting the HTML for the Web page you want to view. The browser creates a request for the specified data by using a command the HTML protocol provides. In the meantime, the Web server has been listening for any HTTP requests. When the request arrives, the Web server examines it, locates the Web page you requested, and sends it to your computer. When the request is fulfilled, the server moves on to service other requests. If additional elements are needed for the Web page the browser is displaying, a graphic for example, the browser must issue a new request to the server for that element.

Browser History

all the Web sites visited during a period of time. The period of time that History is kept is adjustable. We will explore this adjustment when we cover the Internet Options settings (see the Tools > Internet Options menu). The URLs of all the Web sites you visit are retained in the browser's History until the preset period of time has elapsed. After that time, all entries in the browser's history older than that time are removed from the browser's History.

Medium - Low Security

allows you to download and install programs, Java applets, and signed ActiveX controls. A signed ActiveX control is one that contains a valid security certificate that has been signed by the individual or organization that created the control. The Medium-low setting prompts you when signed ActiveX controls cannot be downloaded or run under the Medium-low security setting.

Search Engine

commonly used today to refer to any search site. Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Ask Jeeves, etc. are all commonly referred to as Search Engines. However, to be historically correct, a Search Engine must utilize "spiders," " robots," " crawlers," or otherwise in sundry named automated software programs that actively visit Web pages, harvest keywords from them, all the while sending the keywords and page URL back to the search engines database. The robot then follows all the URLs embedded within the page, repeats the process on each subsequent page, and so on, and so on... crawling its way through all the linked Web content it can find. Most Important: Google

Medium Security

designed to prompt you before downloading, installing, or running Web content that could be unsafe. Unsigned ActiveX controls will be blocked. This setting is recommended for most Web sites, so it is the default setting assigned to the Internet Zone.

Interactive Maps and Driving Instructions

freely available through a variety of sources: Mapquest ( www.mapquest.com) Yahoo! Maps ( >maps.yahoo.com) Rand McNally ( www.randmcnally.com) Google Maps ( maps.google.com)

Protocols: News

helps in accessing a USENET newsgroup

http://www.site.com/fun/file.html

http- protocol, www.site.com - server name, fun - path, file.html - file name

ActiveX control

one that contains a valid security certificate that has been signed by the individual or organization that created the control. The Medium-low setting prompts you when signed ActiveX controls cannot be downloaded or run under the Medium-low security setting. An ActiveX control is a complied computer program. Such programs can be referred by an HTML document, which directs your browser to download, install, and run the ActiveX control. ActiveX controls can be applied in a wide variety of ways to make Web pages more interactive. The advantage of ActiveX controls is that they are automatically installed on your computer and remain there so they can be used whenever required by a Web page. The disadvantage is that like any other program, an ActiveX control could harbor a virus. Most legitimate ActiveX controls carry a signed digital certificate that identifies the control's creator. These " signed ActiveX controls" are considered to be less of a security risk than unsigned ActiveX controls that do not carry a certificate.

Wildcard asterisk (*)

operates as a placeholder for missing letters. When you use the wildcard, it opens a keyword to include variations on the word--for example, wood* finds wood, woodchuck, wooden, woodland, woodshed, woodwork, woodworking, woodstock, woodwind Indian* finds, Indian, Indians, Indiana, and Indianapolis and so on.

Low Security

provides minimal safeguards and warning prompts. It allows you to download and run files, most ActiveX components, and Java applets without first having to respond to warning prompts. This security setting is appropriate for Web sites that you absolutely trust to deliver virus-free and non-intrusive content.

High Security

provides the safest browsing environment, but you will encounter many prompts asking whether or not you would like to download ActiveX controls and Java applets that may accompany Web pages. You typically would set a high level of security for sites in the Restricted Zone.

Sponsored Links

sold/purchased by opening an account with the search site; $5,000 to $10,000+ is common. With your account established with the search site, you then tell the search site how much you are willing to pay to have your site displayed in the list of "Sponsored" results/links

Web Server

stores HTML documents in a plain text, or ASCII, file with embedded HTML tags. HTML tags specify how the document is to be displayed when viewed in a browser. Some HTML tags contain "hyperlinks" to other HTML documents, pictures, sound, etc

Hypertext

the group of interlinked files that comprise the content of the Web

Search Sites

those that employ automated software to build their database of Web sites (Search Engines), and those that use human editors to build a directory of Web Pages (Directories or Subject Trees)