Activity 4: Searching the Internet

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using search engines?



Advantages:

• The indexes of search engines are usually vast, representing significant portions of the Internet, offering a wide variety and quantity of information resources.

• The growing sophistication of search engine software enables us to precisely describe the information that we seek.

• The large number and variety of search engines enriches the Internet, making it at least appear to be organized.

Disadvantages:

• Regardless of the growing sophistication, many well thought-out search phrases produce list after list of irrelevant web pages. The typical search still requires sifting through dirt to find the gems.

• Using search engines does involve a learning curve. Many beginning Internet users, because of these disadvantages, become discouraged and frustrated.

2. Compare and contrast individual search engines and search metasearch engines

• Individual search engines are compose of many individuals website like google,yahoo.ask and etc…..

• Metasearch engines do not crawl the web compiling their own searchable databases. Instead, they search the databases of multiple sets of individual search engines simultaneously, from a single site and using the same interface. Metasearchers provide a quick way of finding out which engines are retrieving the best results for you in your search.

3. When is it appropriate to use a search engine?

• Search engines are best at finding unique keywords, phrases, quotes, and information buried in the full-text of web pages. Because they index word by word, search engines are also useful in retrieving tons of documents. If you want a wide range of responses to specific queries, use a search engine.

4. When is it appropriate to use a search/subject directory?

• Like the yellow pages of a telephone book, subject directories are best for browsing and for searches of a more general nature. They are good sources for information on popular topics, organizations, commercial sites and products. When you'd like to see what kind of information is available on the Web in a particular field or area of interest, go to a directory and browse through the subject categories.

5. What is an invisible web or “Deep Web”?
The "visible web" is what you can find using general web search engines. It's also what you see in almost all subject directories. The "invisible web" is what you cannot find using these types of tools.

6. How do you find an invisible web?

• Simply think "databases" and keep your eyes open. You can find searchable databases containing invisible web pages in the course of routine searching in most general web directories. Of particular value in academic research are:

• ipl2

• Infomine

• Use Google and other search engines to locate searchable databases by searching a subject term and the word "database". If the database uses the word database in its own pages, you are likely to find it in Google. The word "database" is also useful in searching a topic in the Google Directory or the Yahoo! directory, because they sometimes use the term to describe searchable databases in their listings.

• Examples:

• plane crash database

• languages database

• toxic chemicals database

• Remember that the Invisible Web exists. In addition to what you find in search engine results (including Google Scholar) and most web directories, there are other gold mines you have to search directly. This includes all of the licensed article, magazine, reference, news archives, and other research resources that libraries and some industries buy for those authorized to use them.

• As part of your web search strategy, spend a little time looking for databases in your field or topic of study or research. The contents of these may not be freely available: libraries and corporations buy the rights for their authorized users to view the contents. If they appear free, it's because you are somehow authorized to search and read the contents (library card holder, company employee, etc.).

• The Ambiguity Inherent in the Invisible Web:

• It is very difficult to predict what sites or kinds of sites or portions of sites will or won't be part of the Invisible Web. There are several factors involved:

• Which sites replicate some of their content in static pages (hybrid of visible and invisible in some combination)?

• Which replicate it all (visible in search engines if you construct a search matching terms in the page)?

Which databases replicate none of their dynamically generated pages in links and must be searched directly (totally invisible)?

• Search engines can change their policies on what they exclude and include.

7. Why are these web pages not available in search engines or subject directories?

• · There are still some hurdles search engine crawlers cannot leap. Here are some examples of material that remains hidden from general search engines:

• The Contents of Searchable Databases. When you search in a library catalog, article database, statistical database, etc., the results are generated "on the fly" in answer to your search. Because the crawler programs cannot type or think, they cannot enter passwords on a login screen or keywords in a search box. Thus, these databases must be searched separately.

• A special case: Google Scholar is part of the public or visible web. It contains citations to journal articles and other publications, with links to publishers or other sources where one can try to access the full text of the items. This is convenient, but results in Google Scholar are only a small fraction of all the scholarly publications that exist online. Much more - including most of the full text - is available through article databases that are part of the invisible web. The UC Berkeley Library subscribes to over 200 of these, accessible to our students, faculty, staff, and on-campus visitors through our Find Articles page.

• Excluded Pages. Search engine companies exclude some types of pages by policy, to avoid cluttering their databases with unwanted content.

• Dynamically generated pages of little value beyond single use. Think of the billions of possible web pages generated by searches for books in library catalogs, public-record databases, etc. Each of these is created in response to a specific need. Search engines do not want all these pages in their web databases, since they generally are not of broad interest.

• Pages deliberately excluded by their owners. A web page creator who does not want his/her page showing up in search engines can insert special "meta tags" that will not display on the screen, but will cause most search engines' crawlers to avoid the page.

Sources:

http://www.gsn.org/web/research/internet/disadse.htm
http://www.sc.edu/beaufort/library/pages/bones/lesson1.shtml
http://websearch.about.com/od/invisibleweb/a/invisible_web.htm

Activity 4

Answer the following questions. Write you answers in MS Word. Cite your references.

1. What is a web browser? How does it work?- a web browser is a software program that interprets the coding language of the World Wide Web in graphic form, displaying the translation rather than the coding. This allows anyone to “browse the Web” by simple point and click navigation, bypassing the need to know commands used in software languages.
2. What is a bookmark? – A bookmark is a page keeper. A reader inserts a bookmark into the pages of a book when he or she stops reading. This way when it's time to read again, the reader can open the pages where the bookmark is to find the place in the book where he or she left off at rather than trying to remember the page number. Bookmarks save having to flip through the book and read sentences trying to find the exact place to re-start reading the book. A bookmark can be made from many different materials from a simple piece of cardboard to a specially made plastic clip to an ornately embellished fabric creation. Bookmarks may be mass produced and sold in stores or may be hand made.
3. What is the purpose of a web [browser] cache? - Your browser (Netscape, Internet Explorer, etc.—whatever application you use to surf the web) has a folder in which certain items that have been downloaded are stored for future access. Graphic images (such as buttons, banners, icons, advertising, graphs, and color bars), photographs, and even entire web pages are examples of cache items. When going to a page on a website, your computer will check its cache folder first to see if it already has those images and, if so, it won't take the time to download them again. This makes for a faster loading of the page. Cache folders can get quite large, however, and can occupy 40-to-50-to-100 megabytes or more of hard drive space, storing graphics for sites you may never visit again, so it may be wise for those with storage concerns to empty the cache periodically. That will also enable the browser to access updated web pages without the older cache item interfering. You can also limit how much cache is stored. Here's how to do it:
4. What is a web [browser] plugin?- A web browser plug-in (sometimes just spelled plugins) are additional pieces of software that add extra capabilities to your web browser, such as the ability to view movies, run Java applets, or see Flash animations. Unfortunately, since plug-ins run with all the privileges of real applications, they can do absolutely anything to your computer. That means you should never, ever agree to install a plug-in unless you have very good reason to trust the source. Keep in mind that the Flash plug-in comes with your computer, and most systems also come with a Java plug-in. Other mainstream plug-ins include real player. You will almost never have a good reason to install a plug-in that isn't one of these, so say "no" when your browser asks you to install one, unless you have an excellent reason to do otherwise.
5. Choose three types of web browsers and answer the following questions for each browser.

Safari

• How do you enable tabbed browsing? private browsing? - First, open your Safari browser by clicking the Safari icon in the dock. Then, Click on Safari in the main menu, located in the top left hand corner of your screen. When the drop-down list appears, choose Preferences. Select "Tabs" from the Preferences menu, which is now overlaying your browser window. Once "Tabs" is selected, you will notice the following checkboxes are available:
  
  * Enable Tabbed Browsing
  
  * Select new tabs as they are created (can only be selected if Enable Tabbed Browsing is checked)
  
  * Always show tab bar (can only be selected if Enable Tabbed Browsing is checked)

How do you set homepages?- Click on Safari in your Safari menu, located at the top of your screen. When the drop-down menu appears, choose Preferences. Then, Select General from the Preferences menu, which is now overlaying your browser window. Once General is selected, you will notice a section labeled Home Page in the main window of the Preferences dialog.
Directly to the right of the "Home Page" label is an edit field containing your current home page URL. In the example below, Safari's current home page is http://www.apple.com. To modify this address, simply paste the contents of the set field and place it with the desired web address.
Directly below this set field you will see a button labeled Set to Home Page. Clicking this button will set your home page setting to whatever page you are currently viewing within the Safari browser.
Once you have completed your setting, close the Safari Preferences dialog by clicking the red circle/x located in the top left hand corner of the box.

•  
• How do you customize search providers?
• How do you bookmark a page?- Step 1: Just open your Safari and go to the webpage you want to bookmark. If you use tabs, you can open multiple webpages in tabs to bookmark them as a collection. Step 2: "Choose Bookmarks" > "Add Bookmark", or "Bookmarks" > "Add Bookmarks for These Tabs". (If the Bookmarks menu is not visible, press the Alt key to show the menu bar).
  Step 3: Type a name for the bookmark or collection in the dialog that appears. Step 4: Specify where you want to keep the bookmark or collection. You can add it to the bookmarks bar, the Bookmarks menu, or to a collection if you have created any. Step 5: Click "Add".
  
  That's all, OK. You will successfully complete to bookmark a webpage in Safari 4. It is really easy with just several simple steps! How do you organize your book marks? - First click on the “open-book” icon located on the bookmarks toolbar. This will open up Safari’s bookmark organizer.  You will see there are several bookmarks already included from the default install.  On the left section is the categories or ‘Collections’ headers.  Clicking on each collection will display the book marked pages on the right side with the site name and URL. You can really do a lot in this bookmark manager.  If you right click an entry in either section you will be able to choose from many different options such as Open, Delete, Edit, etc… To create a new Collection simply click the ‘+’ button.  This will start a new field for you to custom name.  You can also drag and drop folders into other categories or change the order. Also, notice that your Internet Explorer and Mozilla (including FireFox) bookmarks will automatically be imported during the installation.

How do you clear the cache? - • Open Clear All History main window and select Settings.
• Adjust desired scheduler option(s) and click 'Apply' button
• Select What to Clear -> Browser History item.
• Open 'Safari' tab and put the check mark 'Clear cache' option

• Click 'Apply' button.

clear cache in Safari browser manually
• Open the 'Edit' menu and select 'Empty Cache'.
• Click 'Empty' to confirm that you want to empty the cache.

clear Safari cache using Clear All History.

• • Double-click on Clear All History desktop icon
  
  • Click 'Tools' button.
  
  • Select What to Clear -> Browser History item. • Open 'Safari' tab and check 'Clear cache' option.
  
  • Click 'Clear now' button or click 'Clear All' button in program toolbar.
5. How do you install a plugin? - Download and install SIMBL by pointing your browser to the web address below. Close your Safari browser if it's open on your computer.
6. Download GreaseKit from the address below. Then, install it by copying the GreaseKit.bundle file to the folder ~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins. If your plugins directory does not already exist, then create it.
7. Open Safari once more. You should see a new entry called GreaseKit in your Safari menu.
8. Install Greasemonkey scripts by visiting the Userscripts link below and choose a script to install. Click the "Install this script" button on the Safari installation dialogue box that will pop up. Confirm the installation when prompted.
9. Check your GreaseKit menu to see if the script you selected is appearing in it. Confirm that the script is working by trying it out. Then you can go back to the Userscripts site to install other Greamonkey scripts.

The steps above show how to install Safari plugin 2.0, and this procedure will work for any Safari plugin. Once you have found the website with the plugin, follow the steps as outlined and you will be enjoying the enhanced features of the plugin on your Safari browser in no time.

• How do you save pages offline? - Select File -> Save As (or just hit Command-S) and make sure the Format pop-up is set to Web Archive.

Sources:

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-web-browser.htm

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-bookmark.htm

http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/definitions/plugin.html

http://browsers.about.com/od/safar1/ss/safaritabs.htm

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/apple/organize-bookmarks-with-apples-safari-for-windows/

Activity 2. The Internet

"Impact of the Internet in our world today" 

         The internet nowadays, give so much impact in our society both in negative and positive ways. It helps us and in some ways may harm us for such. For instance, the internet enables us to find information in any time of the day for as long as there is sufficient accessibility in the area and also to consider the paying bills. In other hand, the possibility of pornography, false information, and the pop-ups that appear on the internet serves as negative effects.

       Also, internet has become very essential in our daily lives, such as in workplace, home and especially in school for students like me. Internet is very helpful in doing research, paper works, exams through submission in the internet and the likes. Moreover, internet makes our lives more easy and convenient. You can pay your bills, and buy some things or present through the use of the internet without leaving the house. With just one click of its mouse, then you can have what you wanted. For most of the children who could afford to have access in the internet, it does big help to them. It offers a lot of websites that gives learning to the children, making them more interested because of its features and technology.

      On the other way around, it gives bad or negative effect on us. One of the negative things it can give is its inappropriate information,especially in medical aspects that could lead us into lots of confusion. Another is the pornography that becomes available to all including the young children. Advertising on the internet is also one thing that makes our work delayed because of its pop-ups on the screen, it is very much annoying while working on something else. 

Today the internet has become useful to us and has become a part in our daily life. But we must learn how to avoid negative things for us to enjoy the positive things out of using the internet.

• ISOC - The Internet Society or ISOC is an international, nonprofit organization founded during 1992 to provide direction in internet related standards, education, and policy. It states that its mission is "to assure the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world".
• IAB - The Interactive Advertising Bureau (or IAB) is an advertising business organization that develops industry standards conducts research, and provides legal support for the online advertising industry. The organization represents a large number of the most prominent media outlets in the United Sates.
• IESG - The Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) is a body composed of the internet engineering tasks force(IETF) Chair and Area Directors.
• IRTF -Internet Research Task Force, a research organization working on topics related to the evolution of the Internet.
• IETF - The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) develops and promotes Internet standard, cooperating closely with theW3C and ISO/IECstandards bodies and dealing in particular with standards of the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suit. It is an open standard organization, with no formal membership or membership requirements.
• InterNIC - The Internet Network Information Center, known as InterNIC.
• ICANN - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. 
• IANA - The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).  

SOURCES:

ISOC - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Society 

IAB - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_Advertising_Bureau

IESG - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Engineering_Steering_Group

 IRTF - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRTF

 IETF - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Engineering_Task_Force

 InterNIC - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterNIC

 ICANN - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN

IANA - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Assigned_Numbers_Authority

What made the internet reliable and efficient?

• Internet is open, decentralized, and totally neutral. its intelligence lives at the core not at the edge. No single organization holds it that is why it works as it does.  

What principles applied in the Internet that could also be beneficial in other areas?

• Internet is decentralized it can also be beneficial in provider companies.

The Internet protocol suit is the set of communication protocols used for the internet and other similar network. The Internet protocol suits consists of four abstraction layer From the lowest to the highest layer, these are the Link Layer, the Internet Layer, the Transport Layer, and the Application Layer.The link layer contains communication technologies for the local network the host is connected to directly, the link. It provides the basic connectivity functions interacting with the networking hardware of the computer and the associated management of interface-to-interface messaging. The internet layer provides communication methods between multiple links of a computer and facilitates the interconnection of networks. As such, this layer establishes the Internet. It contains primarily the Internet Protocol, which defines the fundamental addressing namespaces,internet protocols version 4 (IPv4) and Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) used to identify and locate hosts on the network. Direct host-to-host communication tasks are handled in the transport layer, which provides a general framework to transmit data between hosts using protocols like the Transmission Control Protocol and the User Datagram Protocol (UDP). Finally, the highest-level application layer contains all protocols that are defined each specifically for the functioning of the vast array of data communications services. This layer handles application-based interaction on a process-to-process level between communicating 

Internet hosts.