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Surfin' the Net: Getting Started

Article submitted by Susan Stewart, writer and marketing consultant. She is available to write articles, website content, marketing materials and business collateral for new and established businesses as well as the 50+ and senior market. For more information, visit her website at www.StewartWritingServices.com. She can be reached at 303-972-6688.

“So, all you have to do is sign on to the net and put your search words in your browser, or put the site's domain name in. Then some websites will come up and you can look at them to find what you want.”

Huh??

If you think the Internet uses a foreign language, it does. Just as the medical profession, financial institutions and Hollywood (what, exactly, is a Best Boy?) have their terminology, so does the Internet. The good news is that mastering a little Internet-speak is more than half the battle to start enjoying all that the Internet has to offer. Let's take a look at those tricky terms.

Surfin' the net, online and offline

First of all, using the Internet is often referred to as "surfin' the net." I know, it sounds like something a teenaged geek made up; just go with the flow. When you are actually connected to the Internet, you are considered "online." And, yes, when you aren't online, you are "offline."

Internet Service Provider (ISP)

Surfin' the net starts with your Internet Service Provider (ISP). This is the company you pay each month to have access to the Internet and your email. Giving them your money is the only interaction you'll have with them unless you can't get online - then you call, make your way through a ridiculous phone tree, and wait on hold for what seems like forever. When you finally get connected to the right person, they will fix the problem over the phone or send a technician to your house. Your ISP is the only company you should be paying to use the Internet.
Some ISPs are more reliable than others and reliability is critical. There is nothing more frustrating than wanting to check your email or find out what time the movie starts and not having an Internet connection. In some areas - it differs from city to city - you may have access to only one ISP (usually your phone company.) If you have options, talk to your friends and family to see which ISP they recommend. Yes, profit from other people's bad experiences. It's OK.

Browsers

The next thing you need to decide on is what browser you will use. A browser is a free program that allows you to surf the net. The most common browser for PCs is Internet Explorer (IE); it comes installed on your computer. Macintosh computers come with Safari installed. Firefox is a very popular, free, PC and Mac browser that many people find easier to use. If you are using Internet Explorer or Safari and you are having trouble downloading information or navigating the net, go to www.mozilla.com to download Firefox. They have very clear instructions on how to install the software onto your computer.

You open your browser by double clicking on the browser's icon - a small symbol representing computer features and software programs found on your desktop. When you do that, the browser will open up to its default home page. A home page is the first page you see when you sign on to the net or go to a website. A browser's home page has a place to put in a website's address and a place for an Internet search.

Domain Names & Dot Coms

A domain name is the Internet address for a given company or organization. Usually the domain name is logical: Seniors Resource Guide, www.SeniorsResourceGuide.com; Retirement Connection, www.RetirementConnection.com, etc. It doesn't matter if you use lower case or uppercase letters with the letters that are before the .com, .org, etc. However letters after the .com, .org, etc are case sensitive.

Keep in mind that - just like the post office - the website's address has to be correct. A typo here will send you to a screen telling you the site could not be found or it may send you to a site you would really rather not see. You do not have to enter the "http://" part of the address, and we are moving away from entering the ".www" (which stands for World Wide Web). For example, www.cnn.com will take you to CNN's news site but cnn.com will work just as well. Occasionally, a site will not come up if you leave the "www" off the address. Just try again, this time adding the www.
You will find a variety of endings for websites. For example, ".com" (pronounced "dot com") is used for a business and is the most frequent ending for a domain name. Other endings are ".net" which also signifies a business network, ".org" for non-profit organizations, ".gov" for government sites and ".edu" for colleges and universities.

Surfin' the Net

Understanding how to use a search engine and search words is so important and complex that we will be posting an in-depth article devoted to this topic. Until then, here is a brief overview of how search engines work.

If you need a recipe for chicken noodle soup but you do not have an address for a cooking site you will need to use a search engine. The search engine box can be found in the upper right-hand corner of every page on the net. Google is the top search engine with Yahoo coming in second. They use different search criteria so, depending on which search engine you use, you will find some differences in which websites show up at the top of the list.

When a company is designing their website, they include search words in the coding to describe their product(s) or services. When you put search word(s) in a search engine box - in this case "chicken noodle soup recipe"- and hit enter, or "return" on a Mac, a list of companies with those search words come up. A search for "chicken noodle soup recipe" on Google yielded 1,690,000 websites with all or some of those words. Fortunately, the websites at the top of the list are determined by the search engine to be the most relevant. The further you go down the list, the less relevant the websites will be.

The Internet offers an endless supply of information: how to's, shopping for anything you might want or need (some people do all of their shopping online - including groceries!), information about health issues and medications, cooking, hobbies, games like poker and bridge, and so much more. After reading this article, you should be able to get online with your ISP, use your web browser to get to a specific site by typing in the domain name, and surf the net by putting search words in a search engine. Play around, let your imagination wander and learn things you never knew you wanted to know.

Internet Terminology

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