Discover the Internet with Internet Explorer

Note:  When the word Click is used below, it means for you to depress the left button on your mouse.

What’s on the Screen?

            Before you get started, take a look at Internet Explorer’s screen shot to get familiar with the features of
            Internet Explorer.

Log-on to the computer

1.       Enter “User Name” This is your full first and last name with no spaces.  Example:  jonathansmith.

2.       Press ‘Tab’ on the keyboard.

3.       Enter “Password”, your birth date (month, day, year) Example: 062276

4.       Press “Enter” on the keyboard or click “OK” in the dialog box.

Opening Explorer

1.       Click on “Start” button (Located at lower left corner of screen)

2.       Move the Mouse pointer up to “Programs” (on the pop-up menu)

3.       Continue moving the pointer over to “Internet” (next pop-up menu)

4.       Then move the pointer over the next pop-up menus until you reach Internet Explorer, then click.

Note: If you have a shortcut to Explorer on your Windows 98 desktop, just double-click on that icon.

Moving Around in a Document in Your Screen

1.       To move up or down a screen, use the scroll bar on the right of the screen, the Page Up/Page Down keys, or the Up/Down arrow keys.

2.       If a document is too wide for the window, a bottom scroll bar will appear. You can either use the bottom scroll bar or the left/right arrow keys to move across a screen.

To Navigate the Web (Moving From One Document/Screen to Another)

1.       Select links or button on the document itself.

a.       Links are the highlighted areas of text in the document itself. They will lead you to other documents.

b.       To find out whether a chunk of text or a picture is a clickable hotspot, when you move the mouse pointer to a hot spot, the mouse pointer turns into a pointing hand.

c.       The status bar displays the URL of the site you’ll get to by clicking on the hot spot.

1.  To use a link:

a.       Point the mouse cursor over a link. The URL location of the link appears in the status message area at the bottom-left of the window.

b.       Click once on the highlighted text, image, or icon. This transfers page content from a server location to your location.

c.       After you click a link, the Explorer company logo animates to show you that the transfer of the page to your computer is in progress.

d.       Examine the status message area and progress bar at the bottom of the window to receive feedback about the progress of a transfer.

            2.   Use the Back toolbar button or the Go menu to return to a previous screen.

a.       Click on the Back button in Explorer’s toolbar to return to a previous site during the current session.

b.       The Go (top menu bar) pops down a list of recent pages you have retrieved. Go contents are temporary.

      (Or)

c.       To return to a recent site, click the drop-down list button (down pointing arrow) to the right of the
 Net site textbox to display the History list.

d.   Click the URL of the site you want to revisit.

3.       Use the Forward toolbar button only after you’ve already backed up to a previous document. It will return you to the document you were viewing before you chose to go back.

4.       If you get lost and want to go all the way back to the very first page you saw at start of the current session; click the Home button in the toolbar.

Going To Specific Site When You know The Address

            Use one of the following two methods:

1.       In the Website/Location text box, click on the text of the URL. When the highlighted URL appears as white text on a blue background, type the new URL. Optionally, if you want to keep some of the existing URL, just drag the mouse pointer through the part you want to change, and then type only the new part.

2.       Press the Enter key.

3.       When you see Document: Done displayed in the status bar, you are “in” that site, and its home page is on your screen.

4.       The advantage of using the Website/Location box is that a history of URLs you retrieve is available by pressing the gray pop-down arrow at the right end of the Website/Location box.

5.       (Or)---Click on the File menu, and then Click on Open. (You can also access Open by using CTRL + O.)

6.       In the Open textbox, enter a URL, and then Click on Open.

Searching the World Wide Web

1.       To start your search, click on Search in the toolbar.

2.       Select the Search Engine you wish to use in your search.

3.       Type word(s) concerning what you wish to search for in the Search the Web text box. Then click on the Search button at the right of the textbox.

a.      General Tips on net searches:

1.       Quotation marks: Enclosing a multiword phrase in quotation marks tells the search engine to list only sites that contain those words in that exact order.

2.       + and – signs: If you type a plus sign (+) directly in front of a word, you are indicating that the word or phrase must appear in the search results. Similarly, a minus sign (-) indicates that the word or phrase should not be included in the search results.

3.       Boolean Operators: To work, these operators must appear in ALL CAPS and with a space on each side:

a.       AND – Similar to the plus sign, AND indicates that the documents found must contain all the words joined by the AND operator.

b.       OR – Documents found must contain at least one of the words joined by OR.

c.       AND NOT – Similar to the minus sign, using AND NOT indicates that the documents found cannot contain the word that follows the term AND NOT.                                     

d.       Parentheses – Parentheses are used to group portions of Boolean queries together for more complicated queries. For example, to find documents that contain the word fruit and either the word banana or the word apple, enter fruit AND (banana OR apple)

STOP! (This Is Taking Too Long)

1.       If you don’t want to wait for a site to come up and want to go on to something else, click the Stop button in the toolbar.

2.       Try Clicking on the Stop button, then on Reload. This sometimes “un-jams” the telecommunications.

Getting Online Internet Explorer Help

1.       Click on Help in Explorer’s menu bar

2.       Choose whatever topic in the menu seems appropriate. If you’re just looking for general help, click on Handbook.

To Save a Document to a Disk

1.       From the File menu, select Save As.

2.       A dialog box will appear. It will contain a box labeled drives. Click on the arrow next to that box and select “A” drive.

3.       Click on the arrow next to the box labeled Save file as type.

4.       Use Plain text to save as Word document and Select HTML Files to save page as an Explorer file.

5.       Click the cursor in the File Name box and type a name for your file.

a.       If you keep the extension “.htm” the document will “replay” in Explorer.

b.       If you add the extension “.txt” the document will be a plain text (ASCII) file readable in word processors.

6.       Click on OK.

7.       You may verify what you have saved in Explorer by typing in the URL/Location box, the drive (a: for example), and then click on the file name when it appears in the document window.

Favorites

1.       To make a permanent record of sites you like, make a bookmark. Start by making sure the site’s URL you wish to record is currently on the screen.

2.       Click on Favorites in the menu bar.

3.       Click on Add to Favorites.

4.       Click on OK.

5.       To return to a book marked page, click on Favorites, and then click on the name of the site.

To View a File Stored on a Disk

1.       Follow the instructions above for going directly to a URL. Instead of typing a URL, type ‘A:’

2.       Explorer will display the file names on your disk as links. Choose the file you want to view. (Explorer can only display plain text files; it cannot display files from a word processor.)

Exiting Explorer

1.       Click the Close button to close the Explorer window and return to the Windows 98 desktop.

Note - Netscape Navigator is another program that functions like Internet Explorer.  However, Netscape offers some features that Explorer does not.

Netscape Options

 Print Preview:

1.                   Click File on the Menu Bar

2.                   Click Print Preview in the list of options

3.                   Print Preview allows you to view how the web page will print out.  The biggest advantage to this option is that it allows you to see how many pages the document is, and what page you’re viewing.

4.                   So, if you only want to print a certain section of the page, you only need to preview the document and find what page it is on.  Then, you can select that page to print in the print dialog box.

            Search Options

1.         Hit the Search button in Netscape and a full page of search engines and options will appear.  Netscape does not limit you to the one, half-page search engine that Explorer does.