A presentation of the Elmhurst Public Library

1. Internet Basics 2 A presentation of the Elmhurst Public Library

2. Class Objective Building on skills and knowledge from Internet Basics 1, you will learn more about searching, Internet security and Internet privacy.

3. Overview • Searching the Web • Useful Web Sites • Additional Web Features • Web Safety and Security

4. Searching the Web • Subject Directories & Search Engines • Librarians • Meta Search Engines • Subject Specific Directories • The Invisible Web • Ask the Expert Services • Web Rings • Mailing Lists and Discussion Groups

5. Subject Directories & Search Engines Subject Directories are a lot like phone books for the WWW. Look up Web sites by subject or name. Most allow you to browse by subject or search using keywords. Ipl2 (http://www.ipl2.org/ ) Yahoo! ( http://www.yahoo.com/ ) About.com ( http://www.about.com/ )

6. Subject Directories & Search Engines Search engines are tools that allow you to search an index to the text that appears on Web pages. • The index is only to pages it has found. • The index could be hours, days or months old. There is normally no way to tell. • You type words into the search box and the engine returns a list of pages that contain those words.

7. Subject Directories & Search Engines You could just type in words without thinking much and often you will get good results. But sometimes it’s good to have a little madness to your method. How to Search with a Search Engine: • Think about your question. • Imagine a Web page that will contain your answer. • Type words and/or phrases (in “”) that most likely would appear on your imaginary page into the search box. • Review results and modify search.

8. Subject Directories & Search Engines Google ( http://www.google.com/ ) Bing ( http://www.bing.com) Teoma ( http://www.teoma.com/ ) Like with subject directories, every search engine is owned and controlled by a different organization and operates differently.

9. Subject Directories & Search Engines Search engines have more pages (billions vs. millions), but subject directories tend to have only important sites. This is because real people make decisions about what goes into a subject directory.

10. Search Tips • Use unique search terms • Use synonyms • Put words in different order • Put phrases in quotation marks • Search online versions of print sources

11. Search Tips (Cont’d.) • Use lower case (and alternative) spellings of search terms • Limit your searches (images, video, MP3 files) • Use different search engines • Read the “help” section or Advanced Search to focus your search

12. Librarians: The Best Search Tools Why use a reference librarian? • Librarians go to graduate school to learn to do their jobs. • Librarians have years of experience searching and helping people search for information every day. • You’ve already paid your taxes for the library, so why not use it?

13. Meta Search Engines Submits your search to multiple search engines and displays the results for you. Search engines only search their own index, but you may get better coverage if you search across more than one. Dogpile ( http://www.dogpile.com/ ) Vivisimo ( http://www.vivisimo.com/ )

14. Subject Specific Directories This is like a subject directory except that it is limited to a specific subject, type of information, group of people, etc. Artcyclopedia (http://www.artcyclopedia.com/ ) Yahoo! Get Local ( http://cityguides.local.yahoo.com/ ) FirstGov ( http://www.firstgov.gov/ ) HealthFinder ( http://www.healthfinder.gov/ )

15. The Invisible Web There are many parts of the Web that for various reasons are not searchable by search engines. These parts altogether are referred to as the “Invisible Web”. Included in the Invisible Web are the library’s many subscription databases. http://www.elmhurstpubliclibrary.org/

16. The Invisible Web (cont’d) National Parks Guide: ( http://www.nps.gov/findapark/ ) Guidestar Nonprofit Database: ( http://www.guidestar.org/search/ ) U.S. Census: ( http://factfinder.census.gov/ ) U.S. Legislative Information: ( http://thomas.loc.gov/ )

17. Ask the Expert Services Many Web sites have people who have subject expertise answer questions as a service to their users. One place to find these services is at the Virtual Reference Desk AskALocator: http://www.refdesk.com/expert.html

18. Ask the Expert Services Mad Scientist Network: http://www.madsci.org/ Ask Dr. Math: http://mathforum.org/dr.math/ Go Ask Alice: http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/

19. Web Rings Some Web sites choose to associate with each other by linking to one another. An organized fashion of doing this is by joining a Web ring. A directory of Web rings is at: http://dir.webring.com/ Amateur Photography Ring: http://hub.webring.org/hub/amateurphoto Crafts Connection Ring: http://a.webring.com/hub?ring=craftsites

20. Mailing Lists & Discussion Groups Mailing lists, often called LISTSERVs™, can be either newsletters or open discussion forums that occur through e-mail. In order to use a mailing list, you have to register with it. They are available for all sorts of subjects. To find a mailing list on a subject of interest to you, check out: http://www.lsoft.com/catalist.html

21. Mailing Lists & Discussion Groups Discussion groups work much like mailing lists, except that they are not used through e-mail. Discussion groups are accessed through the Web or via special programs for viewing the messages. To find out more about discussion groups and find ones of interest to you see: http://groups.google.com/

22. Organizing Your Web Experience Save Favorites Use “Favorites” feature on browser to create and organize a list of regularly used websites. • Saves on current computer • www.delicious.com Saves “in the Cloud” and is available on any Internet-accessible computer Cloud Computing Allows access to files and data from any Internet-accessible computer. Examples: www.dropbox.com and www.shutterfly.com

23. Useful Sites to Know • Consumer Information • E-mail Providers • Government Sites & Services • Getting Local • Health Information • News & Current Events • Money & Finance • Travel

24. Consumer Information Consumer Reports http://www.consumerreports.org/ Epinions http://www.epinions.com/ Federal Trade Commission http://www.ftc.gov/ Federal Citizen Information Center http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/ Federal Citizen Information Center http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/ USA.gov: Consumer Guides and Protection http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Consumer-Safety.shtml

25. E-mail Providers Accessing electronic mail is one of the most popular uses of the Internet. Many users have free accounts from providers like the ones in the list below. Yahoo! Mail ( http://mail.yahoo.com/ ) Hotmail (http://www.hotmail.com/ ) Lycos Mail ( http://mail.lycos.com/ ) Google Gmail (http://mail.google.com) The library offers classes about E-mail.

26. Government Sites & Services Internal Revenue Service http://www.irs.gov/ Illinois Department of Revenue http://www.revenue.state.il.us/ State of Illinois http://www.illinois.gov/ DuPage County http://www.co.dupage.il.us/ City of Elmhurst http://www.elmhurst.org/

27. Getting Local School District 205 http://www.elmhurst205.org/ Park District http://www.epd.org/ City Centre http://www.elmhurstcitycentre.com/ Chamber of Commerce http://www.elmhurstchamber.org/ Model Railroad Club http://www.emrrc.org/ Art Museum http://www.elmhurstartmuseum.org/ Chicago Reader http://www.chireader.com/ Metromix http://chicago.metromix.com/

28. Health Information American Cancer Society http://www.cancer.org/ American Heart Association http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/ Medline Plus http://www.medlineplus.gov/ Cancer Wellness Center http://www.cancerwellness.org/ Mayo Clinic http://www.mayoclinic.com/

29. News & Current Events BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/ Dziennik Polski http://www.dziennik.krakow.pl/ CNN http://www.cnn.com/ Fox News http://www.foxnews.com/ Chicago Tribune http://www.chicagotribune.com/ ABC 7 Chicago http://www.abclocal.go.com/wls/ Elmhurst Press http://www.mysuburbanlife.com/elmhurst Slashdot http://www.slashdot.org/

30. Money & Finance CNN Money http://money.cnn.com/ MSN Money http://moneycentral.msn.com/ Yahoo! Finance http://finance.yahoo.com/ Community Bank of Elmhurst http://www.communityelmhurst.com/ Big Charts http://www.bigcharts.com/

31. Travel Orbitz http://www.orbitz.com/ Travelocity http://www.travelocity.com/ Lonely Planet http://www.lonelyplanet.com/ Illinois Bureau of Tourism http://www.enjoyillinois.com/ Southwest Airlines http://www.southwest.com/ Travel Library http://www.travel-library.com/ Bed & Breakfast Inns of North America http://www.inntravels.com/

32. Additional Web Features The Web on a basic level is simply hypertext, but the modern Web has been enhanced with many features. • Animation, Video, Sound & Plug-ins • Frames • Forms • Pop-up Windows • Fake Messages

33. Animations, Video, Sound & Plug-ins Browsers are designed to display Web pages. Anything beyond displaying Web pages will require that the browser work with another program. In some cases the browser itself is enhanced by a program, called a plug-in. In other cases, the browser simply uses a program that already exists on the computer. A few examples of plug-ins are: • Adobe Acrobat Reader • Macromedia Flash Player

34. Frames Some pages are actually more than one page combined together. These pages are called frames.

35. Forms When you want to send information to the author of a Web site, you use forms. The Library’s E-mail Contact Us form is one example of a form. Search engines are another example of forms.

36. Pop-up Windows Having new windows pop up over your browser is a very common occurrence when surfing the Web. Sometimes the pop-up windows are important information and other times they are advertisements. The solution to them is pop-up blocking software, but that sometimes blocks good pop-ups.

37. Fake Messages Another common occurrence with pop-ups is a when you get a message that appears to be an important system message from your computer. Note the title bar of the message.

38. Web Safety & Security • dd • Personal Privacy • Computer Security • Personal Safety

39. Personal Privacy • dd • Cookies • Adware & Spyware • Secure Socket Layer (SSL)

40. Cookies • dd Cookies are a way for a Web site to remember that you’ve visited before. The site leaves a piece of data on your computer that only they can read and then when they see that data again they know it is from the same computer.

41. Cookies (cont’d) • dd • Used to your advantage: • Would you be interested in a book about fish? • Welcome back, Mrs. Smith! • However, cookies can also be used to track your behavior online.

42. Cookies (cont’d) • dd You can delete or limit your cookies.

43. Adware and Spyware • dd • Software installed on your computer than monitors what you do (programs you run, keys you type and sites you visit). • Can be as benign as monitoring your behavior and focusing ads at you based on it. • Can be as dangerous as collecting your personal information and sending it to others.

44. Secure Socket Layer (SSL) • dd Encrypts data you send over the web to protect your privacy. When you are using SSL the Web address should start with “https” instead of “http”. Also, the browser will display a lock ( ) on the bottom right corner. This is initiated by the Web site.

45. Computer Security • dd • Viruses, Worms & Trojan Horses • Adware & Spyware • Antivirus programs • Firewalls

46. Viruses, Worms & Trojan Horses • dd Viruses – attached to a program or file and replicate themselves. Worms – Programs that run independent of other programs and damage your computer. Trojan Horses – Once they get into your computer they let outsiders in.

47. Adware & Spyware • dd Hostile versions of adware and spyware, often called malware, are generally considered to be viruses. Many spyware programs don’t do much more damage than slow your computer down.

48. Antivirus Programs • dd You can buy programs that will run on your computer and protect it from known viruses. This software must be regularly updated with new viruses.

49. Firewalls • dd Blocks people and programs from entering your computer through networks or the Internet without your permission. Can be software running on your computer or a piece of hardware, called a router.

50. Personal Safety • dd • Chatting • Filters and Nannyware • Use common sense