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Connecting to the Internet It's
really surprising how many tech support questions are solved by
the answer to one simple question, "Are you connected to the
Internet?" It's easy to open an application like Email or Internet
Explorer but without a network connection you will get errors or
the dreaded "Page cannot be displayed" error. All programs that
use information from the Internet MUST have a connection to work.
Sending and receiving mail, browsing webpages, FTP and CHAT all
need a connection. The easiest way to tell if your connected is
down by your clock (in Windows) you'll have an icon that looks
like two computer screens.
When you are transmitting data (like sending mail) or receiving data (like
downloading a web page) these will be blinking. If you mouse over
the icon you can see bytes sent and received as well as your
connection rate. Your program or application usually will make
this connection for you. If not double click MY COMPUTER, DIAL-UP
NETWORKING and you should see a TCSN icon in there. (sometimes
called MY CONNECTION) You can connect by double clicking or to
make a shortcut on your desktop that's always handy right click it
and left click CREATE SHORTCUT.
Finding
specific information
When you
are searching for something specific, a page will come up with a
lot of text and information that isn't necessary to your research.
Instead of reading everything, click on Edit at the top of your
browser and select Find, a wonderful little box will pop up and
you can type in the word that you are looking for. Click on find
next and it will take you to the first mention of that word. Click
on it again, and it will take you to the next mention of that word
and so on and so on.
404
Not found
Don't you hate it when you click on
something while you are surfing and you get the dreaded 404 message
- NOT FOUND. I have discovered a way which sometimes helps me find
what am looking for. You can hit backspace on your keyboard to
take you back one page or try this trick. Websites are made up of directories and sometimes,
subdirectories. For example: the URL for this page will be http://www.tcsn.net/internettips.html
So, /internetips.html is a page on
the TCSN website.
Look at the top of your browser screen
and you will see a location or address bar which should contain
the URL in the previous paragraph. Try erasing the last bit of the
message so that it reads http://www.tcsn.net. Now click
on it then press your enter key.
There, that should take you back to the TCSN homepages.
So next time
that you get a page not found and you have an url like www.something.com/folder/folder2/page.html,
you can erase everything but the www.something.com or even try www.something.com/folder/folder2/
and see what you might get.
Rightclicking
Don't forget to rightclick to see what
menus pop up for various things. Right clicking means to click the
right button on the mouse. When I am on a page that has a lot of
interesting stuff on it and want to look at one of their links but
don't want to leave the page, I rightclick and select open in new
window.
It's not uncommon for me to have three or four windows going at
once.
Also if you find an image that you would like to keep, right click
on it and select save as. A box containing your file manager will
pop up and you can select which file to put it in and if you want,
you can change the name of the file.
Use
multiple browser windows
As I said in the last section,
I usually have two or three pages open at once. I am fairly impatient
when waiting for a particularly large page to download so I usually
have a couple of other sites open.
To do this in Netscape go to the FILE
menu and click on NEW WEB BROWSER or
Control+N. In Internet Explorer go to the FILE menu and click on
NEW PAGE or Control+N
As long as you have enough RAM (and
most systems do these days) you should be able to have 2 or 3 Browser
windows running at once with no performance degradation. The Internet
does not usually transfer data to you PC at anywhere near the full
speed of modern modems, so you can often be downloading 2 or 3 web
pages at once without any reduction in transfer speed.
Shortcut
Keys Below are some shortcut keys for both
Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer:
Shortcut keys
Alt-Left Arrow: Goes back to the the
previous page
Alt-Right Arrow: Goes forward to next page
Ctrl-B: Opens the Organize Favourites or Bookmarks window
Ctrl-D: Instantly adds the current Web pages to your Favourites
or Bookmarks
Ctrl-H: Opens the History Folder
Ctrl-O: Lets you open a new Web page
Ctrl-N: Opens a New browser window
Alt+Tab to move between 2 or more windows)
Ctrl-R: Reloads the current page
Ctrl-W: Closes the active window
Home: Brings you to the top of the page
End: Brings you to the bottom of the page
Backspace: Takes you back one page
Alt+ right arrow: Takes you forward one page
F1 Help
F2 Rename
F3 Find
F4 Displays the combo box. (Explorer)
F5 Refresh
F6 Switches between panes in Explorer
F10 Goes to menu mode
Microsoft
Keyboard Shortcuts
Copy
and paste To quickly select the entire contents
of a Web document, press Ctrl-A. From there, you can press Ctrl-C
to copy it to the clipboard or Ctrl-X to cut a selection.. press
Ctrl-V to paste.
I don't generally copy a whole page
as there is usually a lot of stuff on the page that I don't want....advertisements...graphics...etc.
But if you do want the whole page why not save it by clicking File....Save
As...and typing in a name which you will recognize and then saving
it in an appropriate folder in your
computer. This way you are saving the html file and so you will
have to look at it in your browser.
If you just want to copy a section
of the page, position your cursor at the beginning of the election
you wish to make, hold your left mouse button
down and drag it to the end of the selection you
wish to copy. Then right click it. Select copy. Then go to the program
you wish to paste it to. Position your cursor where you wish to
paste it. Right click and select paste. You can also use the Edit
menu or the above keyboard shortcuts instead of rightclicking.
Your
Start Page You'll find that
having a good start or home page really makes life easy by putting
the information you regularly use available on the first page that
loads when you get onto the Internet. If you like starting off on
a search engine why not try starting on TCSN's search page?
www.tcsn.net/members/search.html You aren't stuck on just one
search engine instead you'll have links to all the major search
engines as well as a great portal site with local links, news
papers and magazines as well as other important and interesting
sites. Whenever I find a great site I make a link to it on our
site to save you hours of searching. If you have a favorite I
missed use the link on the bottom of the page and I'll be happy to
add it. Once your on the page you want to start with every time go
into your Internet options (TOOLS, OPTIONS or VIEW, OPTIONS) and
hit USE CURRENT to set it as your new home page. Viruses
Okay, here's how they work. Someone sends you an email with an attachment which contains a virus. (.exe
files are program files but you also find viruses with a .pif or .scr
extention)
You open it and there is some cute
message. Meanwhile the virus gets into your system and depending
on the programming will cause all manner of problems.
The way many viruses get spread is
that they read your address book, and send a copy of themselves
to everyone in it; or everytime you send out an email, the virus
will copy it and attach a copy of itself. The point here to remember
is that you can receive a virus from your bestfriend, your sister,
or your neighbour. I can't tell you how many times I have read emails
from people saying that they would never open an .exe file from
a stranger but it's okay from someone they know. Just yesterday
I read somewhere how an entire family had their hard drive
crash due to a virus except for one
who refused to open the .exe file.
Here are your options.
1. You can decide never to open an
attached file that arrives in your inbox.
2. You can write back to anyone who
sends you an file and verify that they sent it to you and verify
what it is.
3. You can copy the file to a
floppy disk and scan it before you open it.
What do I do..... I never open files
that are sent to me unless I have received word from the person
sending it that it is coming. I usually verify it with them first
before opening it. And then I think it over very carefully. I never
open any .exe files with cute names.
Viruses are a frightening internet
reality. My advice....get good anti virus software. From my travels
on the internet, the two most talked about are
If you don't have an anti virus program
running then go to Housecall,
an online virus scanner about once a week. This is a great tool
and it's free. Housecall is very up to date with the latest viruses
and virus fixes.
I have also found a good online scanner
at PC
Pitstop
Find a good Virus newsletter and subscribe.
McAfee has one. I read the names of all the new viruses carefully
every time one of these arrives in my inbox. The next one will have
a lot of the same names but by trying to memorize the names and
remembering them I have successfully stopped viruses from infecting
my machines.
Email Email can be
very confusing when you are just starting out. It really isn't all
that difficult to catch on.
Here is a good
site
on the basics of email.
Outlook
Express home page
Netscape
Messenger homepage
Eudora
homepage
Links
Beginner's
Central - a great
site for learning about the Internet Everything from history,
bookmarking, saving, downloading,
email and more.
the webmaster
More tips to come.....
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