Millions of computers around the world are part of the Internet. These computers are called servers. Servers contain information and various services for users. Most often, servers are located in the intranets of different organizations. Linking these servers in different information networks in different parts of the world to each other with fast connections creates a network or networks; the Internet.
The most popular way of using the Internet is the Web (World Wide Web), which contains hypermedia documents placed in the servers. These documents contain text, pictures, sound, video clips and hyperlinks to other documents. In other words, the Web is a network of documents. There are dozens of browsers designed for navigating between and reading the Web pages. The best-known browsers are Internet Explorer and Netscape Communicator. It is very easy to use a browser, because they let you move from one document to another just by clicking some text or a picture in a document.
The browser finds Internet pages from all over the world and transfers them to the user’s computer over the network. The browser searches and copies HTML files automatically from the network and shows the pictures on your screen as text and pictures. Each Internet page address is unique, and one exact page is not contained in any other page in the entire world. This unique address is called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator).
You can use Internet browsers for reading a family book in the HTM format. The browsers are usually free of charge. By default, printing the family book in the HTM format creates in the Sukujutut folder a file named LISTA.HTM that you open in a browser. You can rename the file in the Family book window. Each occurrence of the word ”Table” is a hyperlink between places. You can make the file accessible for other genealogists by saving it to a computer connected to the Internet.
If desired, the HTM printout of a family book can also include *.gif and *.jpg pictures.
The Netscape Navigator browser is part of the Netscape Communicator package. The Communicator is a larger suite of programs with e-mail as well. The Navigator is enough to enable you to surf in the Internet.
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Back |
One document backwards. Moves you to the previous page. You can click Back several times consecutively to move backwards along the same path you entered the Internet. |
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Forward |
One document forwards. Moves you to the next document among the pages you have visited. |
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Reload |
Reloads the active document. Click this when the loading of a page has been interrupted or failed or the page keeps changing (like picture from a net camera). |
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Home |
Return to your home page. Returns you to the page defined in the settings of your browser. |
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Search |
Search using different search engines. |
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Prints out the document currently open. |
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Security |
Shows security information about moving in the Internet. |
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Stop |
Stops loading a document. Click this if loading a page from the network takes too long or is interrupted (for instance, due to congestion). |
Select Edit > Preferences to change a number of browser settings.
Your home page is the first Internet page that opens after you start up your browser. Select Edit > Preferences and then select Category > Navigator. Add the desired home page to the Location field and then click OK.
Type the address of the page to the Location field and press [Enter]. The page is loaded to the browser. There is a button next to the Location field (a down arrow); clicking it shows a list of the pages you have visited earlier. You can also use the list to quickly go back to a page.
Kun löydät mielenkiintoisen sivun, jonne haluat palata myöhemmin, voit laittaa sen muistiin. Tällöin lisäät kirjanmerkin valitsemalla Netscapen päävalikosta Communicator, Bookmarks ja sitten Add bookmarks.
Open the menu by clicking Bookmarks and then select the desired page.
Internet Explorer is Microsoft’s browser. It is supplied with new versions of Windows operating systems. Version 5.0 contains four different programs:
- Explorer browser for reading Web documents
- Outlook Express for e-mail and newsgroups
- Frontpage Express HTML editor for editing Web pages
- Netmeeting for meetings over the network |
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Back |
One document backwards. Moves you to the previous page. You can click Back several times consecutively to move backwards along the same path you entered the Internet. |
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Forward |
One document forwards. Moves you to the next document among the pages you have visited. |
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Stop |
Stops loading a document. Click this if loading a page from the network takes too long or is interrupted (for instance, due to congestion). |
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Refresh |
Reloads the active document. Click this when the loading of a page has been interrupted or failed or the page keeps changing. |
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Home |
Return to your home page. Returns you to the page defined in the settings of your browser. |
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Search |
Search using different search engines. |
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Favorites |
Opens a permanent list of your favorite Web pages in the left side of the browser. You can click the names of the pages in the list to show them in the browser. |
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History |
Clicking the Page history button shows you where you have visited in the Internet. You can also return to a page from this list. |
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Starts up the e-mail program. |
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Prints out the document currently open. |
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Edit |
Opens the document currently open in an HTML editor. |
You can also add and remove shortcut keys by right-clicking the toolbar and then selecting Customize.
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The menu bar contains all necessary commands. The menus are used by clicking the desired menu name and command.
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File |
Commands for managing files. You can, for example, open and save files and print out documents. |
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Edit |
You can cut, copy and paste text and pictures. You can find a desired word or combination of words in the currently open document. |
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View |
You can define the desired toolbars shown in the browser, view the documents source code, etc. |
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Favorites |
You can add links of interesting pages and organize the contents of the Favorites folder. |
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Tools |
You can, for instance, start up the e-mail program, and change the Internet settings. |
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Help |
Shows information about and instructions for using the Internet Explorer. |
Select Tools > Internet Options. In this dialog box, you can modify your browser settings. The most important settings are in the General tab.
Your home page is the first Internet page that opens after you start up your browser. Select Tools > Internet Options and the General tab. Add the desired home page to the Address text box and then click OK.
Type the address of the page to the Address box and press [Enter]. The page is loaded to the browser. There is a down arrow button next to the Address box; clicking it shows a list of the pages you have visited earlier. You can also use the list to quickly go back to a page.
When you find an interesting page where you wish to return later, you can save its address. You do this by selecting Favorites in the main menu of the Internet Explorer and then selecting Add to Favorites. You can rename the address with a more descriptive name by typing the new name in the Name field in the window that appears and then clicking OK.
Open your favorites by clicking Favorites in the main menu and then selecting the desired page. You can also click the Favorites button, which opens a permanent list of your favorite pages in the left side of the screen. You can hide the list by clicking Favorites again.
There are different ways of looking for information in the Internet.
- Search engines can be used to quickly find information on a topic. You enter a word words related to the information you are looking for in these search engines.
- You can click interesting links to move to other documents.
- You can also guess what the address of a page is. For instance, to find a page about NBC TV programs, try the address www.nbc.com. In other words, use the method of trial and error.
It is easy to use a search engine. Type the information you are looking for and then let the engine(s) do the work. The only difficulty is to define the search word so that you will not find too many occurrences. There are hundreds of search engines in the Internet. You will find several search engines just by clicking Search in the Web browser. You can also type the address of a search engine in the Address box. The search engines work in almost the same way. It depends on the information you are looking for which search engine you should use.
www.hotbot.lycos.com
www.google.com
www.hotbot.com
www.atomica.com
www.northernlight.com
The address also contains a domain name:
- Some country code top level domains:
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Finland |
fi |
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Sweden |
se |
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Germany |
de |
- Some web domains in the United States:
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Commercial
enterprises |
com |
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Educational and research organizations |
edu |
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Military services in the U.S. |
mil |
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Administrative maintenance of a net |
net |
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Nonprofit organizations |
org |