MY WORLD: [my
favorite things][writings & musings]
CYBERGRRL WEBSTATION: [planet cybergrrl] [cybergrrl village] [webgrrls] [femina] [womenzone]
as published in the Resident Paper, NYC - written 1995
You have your modem. You have your Internet account. You have your SLIP or PPP connection. Are we on the World Wide Web yet? Fasten your seatbelts, we're about to take a multimedia ride!
To view the World Wide Web in all of it's graphical glory, you'll need to use a Web browser such as Netscape or Mosaic for Mac or Windows. The browser is actually software that you load onto your computer. It acts as your window to the Web, translating the data you are retrieving and presenting it to you in an interesting format with photographs, graphics, sound and video mixed in with the text.
Navigating through the Web with your graphical Web browser is as simple as pointing and clicking on highlighted text or images which represent "links". These links can either take you deeper into a Web home page or take you to another home page anywhere else in the world, just by clicking on something. When you are connected to the World Wide Web using your Web browser of choice, "travelling" to home pages from Boston to Beijing, you are able to download information from computer databases on every conceivable topic.
The best places to start your journey are: 1) the default home page for your Web broswer which automatically appears when you first log onto the Web (ie. Netscape's or Mosaic's home page) and these will give you introductory information on the Web and tools to search and explore and 2) Yahoo! Yahoo stands for Yet Another Heirachical Officious Oracle and is one of the best "Yellow Pages" of the Web that is actually on the Web. It is not the most comprehensive directory, but it's a great place to begin.
At Yahoo (see address in box), you can make your way through their extensive alphabetical list of topics (Art, Companies, Entertainment, etc.) or perform a Search by typing in a keyword on any topic to see what home pages show up. Put in "Skiing" as the keyword and you'll find hundreds of links to other pages with the word "skiing" in them. They could be home pages for ski resorts in Colorado or Switzerland or they can be home pages for individuals who like to ski. Put in "Travel" as the keyword, and you'll end up with thousands of links to everything from travel agencies to tourism boards to airlines and hotels. Yes, you can literally plan a trip to many places in the world, peruse multimedia "brochures" for resorts and tourist attractions, and then book your airline ticket - all on the Web!
There are other "Search Engines" on the Web which gather listings of links rather than the main home pages. These operate the same way as Yahoo's search tool by entering a keyword, however, you'll be searching databases that contain from 100,000 to 400,000 links. Put in "Shopping" as a keyword in one of the larger search engines, and you'll end up with so many links, you won't even know where to begin! There are hundreds of electronic malls set up on the Web such as "Cybermalls" in Vermont. I actually ordered incredible homemade brownies with information I found on the Web about Joan and Annie's Brownies which is located in Cybermalls. They suggested that I didn't use my credit card number over the Internet, but their home page provided me with a form that I printed, filled out and faxed to them. I could have also placed a telephone order. Still, I would have never known about their Brownie-Grams if it wasn't for the Web!
The best way to understand the Web is to be there and to explore. I've included a longer list of Hot Tips to point you in the right direction for some of my favorite sites on the World Wide Web. Happy Surfing!