History of the Internet

Began in 1969 as a network of computers at UCLA, UC @ Santa Barbara, Stanford & Univ. of Utah.

It was funded by the U.S Dept. of Defense. The first network was called ARPANET.

Reason for Internet

The 1st goal was to develop hardware & software needed to create geographically dispersed network that could function even if a network was destroyed or disabled.

2nd goal was to create a way for scientists at different locations to share info & collaborate on military projects

What is the Internet?

It links computers to computers sharing the TCP/IP protocols.

The internet is the transport vehicle for the information stored in files or documents on another computer.

The Internet itself does not contain information.

Definition of Internet

The term Internet, is used to describe a world wide group of connected networks that allow public access to information and services.

No single organization owns or controls the Internet.

Quote

"Too many young people believe if they see it on the Internet, it must be true." Alan November

Getting connected to the Internet? To access the Internet you need:

– A computer– A modem– Software to dial into an ISP – An ISP (Internet service provider)

The World Wide Web

1991 Tim Berners-Lee released a program that allowed you to create a document called a Web page that had built in links to other related documents.

The collection of hyperlinked documents on the internet is known as : World Wide Web or WWW or W3 or simply the Web.

What is the World Wide Web?

Microsoft Explorer or Netscape are the browsers that allow you to view documents on the internet.

The current foundation on which WWW functions is Hypertext using HTML.

HTML provides highlighted links to other documents

What makes “the Web” work? HTML: Hypertext Markup Language This is a standardized language of

computer code, imbedded in a”source” documents behind all web documents.

The browsers are programmed to interpret HTML for display.

HTML can be found in other programming languages & applications such as Javascript, SGML & XML.

What makes “the Web” work?

URL: Uniform Resource Locator This is the unique address of any web

document

Anatomy of a URL

http://www.utexas.edu/welcome http:// - this is the type of file www.utexas.edu - this is the domain name.

Identifies computer that stores the web. /welcome – this is the directory path-

identifies where the web page is stored.

What are you really searching?

WWW is currently estimated at over 1 billion documents.

It is not indexed in any standard vocabulary, unlike a library’s catalogs.

The web is the totality of the many web pages which reside on computers called servers all over the world.

Domain Owner

Why would I want to know who owns a web site? You may want to know who publishes the information you are reading or identify the group that pays for the site.

Ownership of a web site can be found by going to alltheweb.com

“Searching the Web”

It is not possible to search the web directly. Your computer will access one of the

several intermediate databases & or web-pages which contains selections of other web pages organized to allow you to find other web pages.

They provide you with URLs to other pages.

Search Tools

Search Engines: Alta vista, Hotbot, Lycos, Excite, Dogpile, Metafind

These search by keyword, trying to match exact words.

Use no browsing & no subject categories Can search from minimal to specialized up

to 90+% of the web.

Who made money on my search?

Search pages like Google, Altavista and Yahoo make money by selling key words to companies

Companies pay per click to have their web site listed first in the major search pages.

For more information: Alan November’s web site

Subject Directories

These are hand-selected sites picked by editors.

Organized into hierarchical subject categories. Can only search the subject categories & descriptions.

Examples are librarian’s indexes, Britannica’s & Yahoo galaxy

Subject Guides

These are web pages of collections of links on a subject

Complied by “expert” subject specialist, agencies & associations

Examples are: www virtual library & Argus clearinghouse.

Web search strategy

S tep 1A n a lyze you r top ic

S tep 4D on 't b og d ow nin an y s tra teg y

S tep 2P ick th e rig h ts ta rt in g p lace

S tep 3L earn as you g o

V ary you r ap p roach

F ou r S tep s to search s tra teg y

What not to do!

Browsing searchable directories “Simple” searching in large search engine

databases. Following links to sites recommended by

popular vote or commercial interest.

Hoax Web Sites

Boilerplate: http://www.bigredhair.com/boilerplate.html

California's Velcro Crop under Challenge:

http://home.inreach.com/kumbach/velcro.html

Mankato, Minnesota:

http://lme.mnsu.edu/mankato/mankato.html

The Onionhttp://www.theonion.com/3939/

Recognizing Domain Types

..edu a U.S. college or university .com a commercial, for-profit entity .org a non-commercial, non-profit entity .gov U.S. government .mil U.S. military .net a computer network .int an international organization .jp, .ru, .ca, .au, etc. country identifiers