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Browsing
the World Wide Web
In an online course, you will probably use your web browser software more than
any other, so it's worth a little time up front to make sure you are comfortable
with your browser's features. You can save a lot of time and work more efficiently
if you optimize your browser settings and customize it to support spell-checks
and Google searches, to organize your bookmarks/favorites in folders, etc. Here
are some tips and pointers:
- Which browser should I use?
- Internet Explorer (Windows only). Internet
Explorer is the default web browser for Windows users. Because it has
many security exploits and vulnerabilities, and lacks modern features
such as tabbed browsing and subscriptions to RSS feeds, many people have
switched to Firefox or Safari. For an indication of browser usage in a
student-age population, the Boing
Boing website had these usages as of early-August 2007: Firefox led with
50.5% of total hits, and the new-kid-on-the-block Safari came in at third
place with a surprisingly high 12.9%. Netscape and Mozilla combined for
under 4%. The bottom line is that Internet Explorer no longer holds a
monopoly on the world wide web (at 26%, it was not even a majority at Boing
Boing).
- Firefox
(Windows and Mac) was once the browser component of Mozilla,
the open-source project derived from Netscape. Firefox is now distributed
in a faster, sleeker, standalone version that has quickly become the #2
browser on the world wide web. Because of its support for plugins that add powerful custom features like ftp and screenshots, Firefox has rapidly become the browser of choice for those who spend a lot of time working online. Here are just a few Firefox plugins:
- Safari 3 (Mac and Windows: features
| download).
Safari 3 is an extremely fast and standards compliant web browser.
Safari
3 is free for both Windows and Macintosh. It loads web pages four
times faster than Internet Explorer and twice as fast as Firefox. Its
features are elegant to use (e.g., a beautiful Find function, powerful
bookmark library management, tabbed browsing, integrated Google search
and RSS feeds, resizable text fields, etc.). Unlike Internet Explorer,
Safari is secure from malware, adware and viruses. Safari is the default
web browser with Mac OS X. Even though it was Mac-only
until summer 2007, Safari is already the third most popular browser on
the web. Because Safari is the web browser used by the iPhone,
its web share will continue to increase exponentially.
- Choosing between Firefox and Safari?
That's a hard choice! Many people use both. On a Mac, Firefox does not support Services, which is almost a deal-breaker for me. But I still use Firefox for its plugins, and Safari for its speed and Mac-like feel. But here are other opinions:
- QuickTime movies: Internet Explorer sucks at displaying
QuickTime movies because it will not begin playing a QuickTime movie until
the entire movie has loaded. This keeps you waiting, wondering what is
going on while your browser page appears blank. If you plan to watch the
QuickTime movies in this course, use either Firefox or Safari.
- Download
browser plug-ins (all browsers, Mac & Windows,
CAS page)
- Load current versions of web pages
- You can browse ahead to see what students
did in future weeks in a previous semester, but beware that the assignments
may change for this semester as I make revisions before publishing the
new versions. So I would not recommend, for example, printing out the assignments for Week 4 in Week 1; they may very well change.
- If you suspect you are viewing an older version of a web page, click the refresh button
in your browser to see if it will reload a current version.
- To make sure that you always see the current version of a web page,
rather than loading an older one cached on your hard drive, set your browser
preferences to check for a current page before loading. Here's how:
- Internet Explorer:
- Go to the Tools menu, and choose Internet Options.
- In the window that opens, you will probably be in the "General"
tab. If not, click "General" at the top.
- In this Internet Options window, the middle area will be labeled
"Temporary Internet Files." Click the button that says
"Delete Files." This will empty the browser's cache of
stored, old pages.
- Next to the "Delete Files" button is a button labeled
"Settings." Click the "Settings" button so that
you won't have to come in a delete files again. In the Settings
window that will open, select check for newer versions of stored
pages on "Every visit to the page." This will make sure
that you always see a current version of web pages.
- Safari: You do not need to make any special settings;
Safari will do this automatically.
- Firefox: Edit-->Preferences-->Advanced-->Cache.
Select "document in cache is compared to document on network
Every Time"
- Spellcheck and word count:
essential when you're writing posts for a Discussion Board!
- Google searching
- Integrated Tool Bar: Use the best web search engine
right from your browser tool bar!
- Firefox: Integrated
search is built-in.
- Safari:
- A Google search area with "snapback"
functionality is built-in and ready to go. Just make sure "Google
Search" is checked in the View menu. Don't miss this handy
summary of Google
search tips for Safari.
- Right-click or control-click on any word to search Google or
lookup a word in the Oxford American Dictionary (built-in Mac
OS X).
- Google tips: with these cross-platform tips you can
Google-up more than you think.... (all of these tips work within any integrated
Google toolbar).
- Tabbed browsing: Open new pages in tabs within the same
window, thus reducing screen clutter. New pages load in the background, while
you finish reading the original page, thus saving time. Don't waste time waiting
for pages to load! Here's how:
- Pop-up blocker: Get rid of those pesky ads! However, remember
to turn this off when you go to Campus IT support pages.
- Safari: Built-in; select "Block Pop-Up Windows" from the Safari
menu.
- Firefox: Built-in.
- Status Bar: Watch this area at the bottom edge of the browser
window. When you mouse over a link, it will display the type of file you are
about to open (html, jpg, zip, etc.) and whether it will open in a new window.
If you want to download an image file to your hard drive rather than view
it in your browser, or if you want to force a new page to open in a new window,
you can choose to do so using contextual menus (see below).
- Internet Explorer: always visible.
- Firefox: always visible.
- Safari: to turn on, select Status Bar from the View Menu.
- Organize Bookmarks/Favorites in Folders
- Organize Bookmarks/Folders in the Toolbar
- Homepage: Make sure you know how to choose a good Homepage,
since that is a page you will see again and again. You can set your Homepage
to be the course home page, the Google search page, the home page of your
favorite news site, etc.
- Contextual Menus:
There are many important actions you can take through contextual menus: save
images to your hard drive from webpages that you are visiting; open
a link in a new window; spellcheck a selected word; etc.
- Firefox: Right-click on any image or link.
- Safari: Control-click (one button mouse) or right-click (multi-button
mouse). Note: In Safari, the contextual menu offers to spell-check a selected
word, search Google for it, or look it up in the American Oxford Dictionary.
- Search for text on any web page
- Windows: Press Control-F.
- Mac: Press Command (Apple)-F.
- Read the latest articles or posts on a website by subscribing to
its RSS feed
The next topics have to do with more than the browser, but may as well be mentioned
here:
- Security
- Screenshot
When reporting a problem to the instructor, it's very helpful to take a picture
of your screen or window, and attach it to your email. Here's how to take
a screenshot:
- Search your hard drive
- *Note: The Google taskbar searching described above installs within
your web browser and searches the World Wide Web. It is not the same as
searching your hard drive using your operating system. Here's how to do
that:
- Windows
desktop searching
- Mac
OS X Spotlight
"Anyone
who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a Web page appears
to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little
chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor,
or another network." Tim
Berners-Lee, who invented
the world wide web in 1990.
