Project 4

Chapter 4 - Beyond Search Engines

Read the chapter
Complete the Review Questions
Complete the Exercises and Projects in the text
Work through the Practice Activities in the Self-Check below
Check your Answers
Ask questions about anything that you don't understand.

Chapter 7 - Discussion Groups and Usenet Newsgroups

Read the chapter
Complete the Review Questions
Check your Answers
Ask questions about anything that you don't understand.

To be graded: Lab Activities #1 and #2

Reminder: Send answers to both of these email addresses:

Self-Check Practice Activities

The Internet is HUGE. There are millions of pages. It can be very time consuming to just wander around through hyperlinks to find what you want! Therefore, it is important to learn how to efficiently and effectively use the search tools that are available on the Internet. Without the knowledge of Internet search tools and the skills to use them properly, finding things on the Internet can be very frustrating. It is important to know the difference between different types of search tools that are available. This week's project focuses on search tools that are NOT search engines.

Directories are organized into subject categories that allow users to browse through topics to find information. Browsing is a good strategy to use if you have an interest in a broad topic area.

Popular Directories

Yahoo at: http://www.yahoo.com
Looksmart at: http://www.looksmart.com
Joe Ant at: http://www.joeant.com/
The Open Directory at: http://dmoz.org
Galaxy at: http://www.galaxy.com/directory/

Visit different directories and practice "browsing!" (The Internet is always changing. If you do not find the exact categories listed here, browse around using topics that you are interested in. The important idea is to do some exploring and become more familiar with several directories.)

At Yahoo, scroll down the page to see the "Yahoo! Web Directory." Click on the Category named: Health. Then click on Fitness. Then click on Exercises. Then click on Aerobics. (This is referred to as "drilling down" or browsing through directory listings to seek out information that gradually becomes more specific!) The "PATH" would be referred to as:
Health / Fitness / Exercises/Aerobics
Select the website titled:
"FAQ Aerobics "
At Looksmart, "drill down" following this path:
Click Food on the home page.
Scroll down on the Food page to find Quick Meals
Continue making choices to explore recipes that sound good to you!
At Joe Ant, "drill down" following this path:
Home & Garden
Click on the Subdirectory named: Pets & Animals
Click on the Subdirectory named: Names for Pets
Visit a website that sounds interesting.
At the Open Directory home page, under the Recreation category, click on Outdoors. Drill down following this path:
Speleology - Show Caves - North America - United States - Indiana
Visit an Indiana cavesite
At the Galaxy home page, under the Community category, click on Environment. Then click on Endangered Species. When the results page appears, you will see a list of "Featured Listings" first. These are advertising websites to sell products! Scroll down below the Featured Listings to find the "Site Listings."
Choose a website to visit that sounds interesting.

There are many different names and formats available on the Internet for being able to talk to people all over the world about topics of interest to you. You may have used or heard about forums, chat rooms, bulletin boards, clubs, message boards, discussion groups, interest groups, mailing lists, listservs, newsgroups or Usenet. Millions of people are using these kinds of tools in the Internet community to connect with other people for discussions. Many search engines and portals on the Internet offer you the opportunity to create your own discussion group or chat group on any topic that interests you!

Some "discussion groups" require the user to join or "subscribe." Others are made public for anyone to use. Some use email to share messages and others post all messages to a common World Wide Web page devoted to that topic. Some require that you are online at the same time with the people you are "talking" to. No matter what method you choose, you may find people with similar interests who are willing to share ideas with you via your computer!! Use these means of communication wisely. Never provide your real name, address, phone number or other personal information to strangers!!

Important note:
When completing Activities for this project, you may not see exactly the same screens that the directions describe. It will depend what links you click on and when you click on them. If you do not see what the directions say, make reasonable guesses to move along, use the back button to return to previous screens and recheck the directions and try again, or send me questions if you get stuck.

Activity - Newsgroups

After reading about Newsgroups in Chapter 7, visit Google's Usenet Newsgroup Directory. Google's Usenet Directory offers several different ways to find a newsgroup that would interest you. Messages are posted in groups that are sorted by topic. Users can browse through the newsgroups or use the search feature to locate information. To answer the numbered short answer questions, read in the text or go to the Google home page at:
http://www.google.com

On Google's home page, click on the link for "Groups"
On the Google Groups page, click on the link next to the Search button named: "Groups Help." If necessary, click on the link at the left named: "Basics of Usenet."
Use the link at the left of the Basics page to go to the "Usenet Glossary." Answer the following:

What does it mean to "follow a thread?"
What is a "handle?"
What is a "newsgroup?"
How is an unmoderated group different from a moderated group?
After posting a message to a group in Usenet at Google, is it possible to "nuke" your post if you decide you don't want it to be visible to others?
What is a "thread?"

Activity - Mailing Lists

Internet Mailing Lists are similar to newsgroups because they are also designed for people who share common interests. However, to belong to a mailing list, you must "subscribe" to join the group. Once you join a mailing list, typically, the messages that you send are sent to everyone in the list and every time someone in the list sends a message it will be sent to you! It is VERY important to study how mailing lists work and the netiquette rules to follow before subscribing. Generally, mailing list participants are not friendly to newbies who don't know what they are doing! To see a list of mailing lists, go to:

http://lists.topica.com/

On the Topica lists page, in the list titled "Choose from Thousands of Newsletters and Discussions," click on the link for "Internet."
On the "Internet" page, in section of the page on the lower right titled: "Discuss the Web & Tech," click on the link for "Reboot My PC--Tech-help discussion for all levels."
On the "Reboot my PC information page, answer the following questions:

What is the purpose of this list?
Who is allowed to read the archive of messages for this list?
When was this list created?
How many subscribers are currently on the list?

Visit The Internet Tourbus website at: http://www.tourbus.com

If you subscribe to the "Tourbus" newsletter, how often will you receive email from them?
What is the purpose of the Tourbus newsletter?

Check your Answers

Lab-Favorites List

There are two activities to complete for the lab of this project.

When you submit this project, you will be sending this project from your Yahoo account. When I send the confirmation that I received your work, the confirmation will also be sent to your Yahoo account.

This project may require quite a bit of time online to complete. For this project, you are required to save files to a location and then locate them later. If you are weak in file management skills or have never used Windows Explorer or My Computer to manage files, be ready to have someone help you with that!

A website that can help you understand how to create and use folders to save files is at:

http://www.itc.virginia.edu/desktop/docs/fms/pc/home.html

Follow the links at the website to learn more about file management skills!

If you experience any difficulty, contact me to ask for help. Send details about what you tried and what you see on screen that keeps you from completing the assignment.

Read in Chapter 2 of the textbook about Favorites in Internet Explorer (pages 38-39). This feature is called "bookmarks" in other browsers. You may, therefore, hear the term bookmarks when users refer to the favorites list in Internet Explorer (IE). The terms mean the same thing. Using bookmarks or favorites is a way to make returning to web pages that you have visited much easier. The text displays how you can organize your favorites (bookmarks) using the menu commands available in IE.

You may also want to visit the website for Internet Explorer Tips and Tricks at:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/using/howto/share/favorites.asp

Lab Activity #1- Organizing Favorites

When you create bookmarks or "add a favorite" you are saving the URL and the title of the page so that you can click on the title of the page in the favorites list to open the page.

Creating a favorites list is so easy that it doesn't take very long before you have a huge list of favorites and in no particular order. Because favorites are so useful as a tool, it is essential for the Internet "power-user" to know how to store favorites into folders to make them more manageable! After you create folders to organize your favorites, you can save them or drag and drop them directly into the folders you have set up. Using folders to group related favorites together makes it much easier to find the appropriate web page at a later time.

NOTE:
You may already have a long list of favorites stored on the machine you are using. You may also see folders already set up in your favorites list. You can keep these or delete them! You have the power to move, rename and delete items in your favorites list. Explore the Help menu in Internet Explorer for more details about managing your favorites.

Follow the directions given below to create new folders in your favorites list and to save TWO website addresses into each folder. These cannot be just any folders and any web pages! You are to give the folders specific names that are given in the directions and you are to visit specific websites that are listed and then add the page as a favorite to your list.

Open Internet Explorer and Click on the Favorites toolbar button to open the favorites list. You should see your browser window divided with the favorites list in a pane on the left side of the window. You can toggle this view on and off with the Favorites toolbar button.
Above the list of Favorites, click on the icon for "Organize...." This will open a dialog box. Click on the button to Create Folder. On the right side of the dialog box, a new folder will appear with the name "New Folder" highlighted. Delete the words New Folder and type Project 4. Press Enter and Close. At the bottom of the Favorites list, you should see your new folder appear with the name you gave it. (If it does not have the correct name, you can right-click, choose Rename and type the correct name.)
After creating a new folder called Project 4, click on the Add button above the favorites list. (Click on the "Create In" button if the folders are not viewing in the lower half of the dialog box.) Click on the new Project 4 folder to open it.
In this dialog box, use the New Folder button to create a folder called Parkland inside your Project 4 folder. The Parkland folder will view in the list indented under the Project 4 folder.
Click on the Project 4 folder to return to it. Repeat the process to create four more New Folders inside your Project 4 folder. (See folder names listed below.) As you create each new folder, be sure that you click on Project 4 to open Project 4 folder first and THEN create the new folder. If you forget to do that, you can always go to your favorites list and drag the folders into the Project 4 folder when you are finished. The folders inside the Project 4 folder should be named:
- Parkland
- Colleges
- Search Engines
- Weather
- Books

For this favorites list, add each of the web pages listed in the table below. As you add each web page to your favorites list, be sure to put it into the correct folder and change the "Name" of the page in the Name textbox to show the shortened name for the page given in the table. A review of the steps to add web pages to your favorites:

Visit the website listed by using the link given in the first column of the table displaying the URL.
When the web site appears in the browser, add the "favorite" to your list. You can put it directly into the folder by clicking the Favorites "add" button, clicking on the plus sign beside the Project 4 folder and clicking the subfolder that you want to open.
Edit the "Name" given in the Name textbox to make it short, and click on the OK button. Many of the websites have very long titles that you don't want to show up in your Favorites list. Having short titles for your bookmark names makes your list much more manageable. You will lose points if you do not use the chart below to give each of your favorites a short title.
After you are finished adding the website to your favorites, click on the close (x) button in the upper right corner of the website's window to bring you back to these instructions.
Repeat this procedure until you have all the web page addresses in the folders.
When you are finished, if your websites are not listed in the correct folder, drag and drop them to the correct folder. Right click on any items you need to rename to get a popup menu for the rename command.

When you are finished you should have two hyperlinks in each of the new folders and all of your new folders should be inside the Project 4 folder.

Here is the list of sites to visit!!

URL of web page	Name to be used for the bookmark	Folder
http://www.parkland.edu/athletics/	Parkland Athletics	Parkland
http://www.parkland.edu/library	Parkland Library	Parkland
http://www.uiuc.edu/index.html	U. of I.	Colleges
http://www.eiu.edu	Eastern Ill. Univ.	Colleges
http://www.google.com	Google	Search Engines
http://www.teoma.com	Teoma	Search Engines
http://www.weather.com	Weather	Weather
http://www.wunderground.com	Wunderground weather	Weather
http://www.campusbooks.com/	Textbooks	Books
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/	Barnes & Noble	Books

Save your Project 4 Favorites List to a disk.

You can save your list to a floppy disk, zip disk, USB device or to the hard drive of your machine. Decide where you want to save your Favorites list as a file and then:

Open Internet Explorer
File menu / Import and Export (A wizard will open.)
Next / Export Favorites / Next / Click on the folder for Project 4 / Next.
Click on the Browse... button and click on the location where you want to store your file.
For the File name type: parklandbookmarks-xx.html (replace the xx with your initials)
Click on Save
Next / Finish / OK

Now you should have a file with your Favorites List as hyperlinks saved to the location you chose. Make note of where you saved your file. You will need it for the next part of the project! You can also create bookmark files like this to use as files that you can open in the browser on different machines and have all your hyperlinks at your fingertips!

Lab Activity #2

Uploading your bookmark list as a web page on the Internet

To upload your bookmark file that you saved to disk to Yahoo/Geocities so that your bookmark list can be available to you online, follow the directions given below. Geocities is constantly revising the look of their website, so if you don't find things EXACTLY as they are described here, make logical guesses to try to keep moving through the process. Do let me know if you need more details.

Go to http://www.geocities.com

Choose the link to have a "free" Geocities home page.
Click on the button labeled: "Sign up"
Log in using your Yahoo user name and password.
(You already have an ID with Yahoo but you may still have to fill in a form. If you do, be sure to uncheck any boxes that may ask about things you are interested in. If you leave the boxes checked, you will start receiving LOTS of email ads!). Yahoo has also added more security to keep young people from getting an account without their parents' permission. If you are asked for your birthday be sure to use a date that makes you 18 years old or more!
IF you see a "topic" screen, click in the circle beside "Education" and when it asks how you found out about Geocities, any choice is fine. Continue. (This screen may not show up at all or may show up later if you don't see it at this step...)
When the page shows indicating your Yahoo ID and Home Page Information, print it to have a copy of your website's URL.
Click on "Build your website now" to get to the upload link
On the GeoCities Control Panel page, click on the tab labeled: Manage
In the File Management box, click on Easy Upload
Click on the "Browse" button and find your file for uploading.
Click on the filename and the Open button.
Click on "Upload Files"
Click on the link for "File Manager" to return to where your file is being stored. You will see a file named index.htm that Geocities put there for you and your bookmarks filename listed. Click on the link for "View" that is to the right and on the same line as your bookmark filename.
Your bookmark file will display as a web page with active links. The URL that is showing in the address bar of the browser should be something like: http://www.geocities.com/username/parklandbookmarks-xx.html.
(Replace the xx with your initials and the user name with the user name that you use to sign in at Yahoo/Geocities.)
Click on the URL in the address bar to highlight it.
While the URL is highlighted, right-click on the URL and choose the Copy command.
Open Internet Explorer again to go to your email account and paste the URL in the message area. Keep this window open.
Go back to your other Internet Explorer window that is displaying your bookmarks.
Use this window to go to this page: http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/
Visit a few of the shortcuts available at Yahoo. Choose two that you think you will use in the future.
Go back to your email window. Start a new paragraph below your bookmarks URL and describe which Yahoo shortcuts you chose as your favorite ones.
Start a new paragraph and list topics that were new to you in this project.
( Topics included: using directories, newsgroups and Usenet, creating a bookmark list, organizing favorites into folders, uploading files to the internet...)
Start a new paragraph and say approximately how long it took to complete the project.
Send the message to me in email.
The subject of the email should be: CIS 151 - Proj 4 - Your Name
Send a CC: of the email to yourself to test the URL when you open it in your email.
Close the webpage and leave Geocities by using the link to Sign out.

You can view your bookmarks page from any machine that is connected to the Internet! Any time you want to see your page in the browser, type your URL for your page in the address bar and press Enter.
When you are viewing in the browser, you may get pop-up windows with Error messages asking if you want to "debug." Always answer NO to these pop-up boxes!

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws