On-line Manual for the Parks School Website

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So, you've learnt to control the browser and the Parks site, so what's next? Well, it's now time to venture out into the wide blue yonder of other sites all over the world. If you look at the resource pages of the Parks site you'll find quite a large list of sites that you might find useful with clickable links to all of them (this list is also reproduced in Appendix C). Just click on them once and you'll be whisked away to that site without further ado. But what if you can't find your information there? How do you go about finding other locations which might have what you want?

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- Following your nose

There are two main ways of finding other sites on the subject matter that you are looking for. Firstly, any site you go to almost certainly has a list of links that the author of the page finds useful. If the site you are looking at is on a specific subject, it's fair to say that this list of links probably reflects the things he or she is most interested in, e.g. if there site is on autism it's a good bet that there will be a healthy list of autism site links available on that web-page. All you have to do is look down the list of links, clicking as you go on anything that looks interesting. This process is often called "surfing the net", because you're letting the flow take you without necessarily knowing where you'll end up. This can be both rewarding and interesting, but it's all to often a rather time consuming method, with many distractions along the way.

The second method is to use a search engine. A search engine is a tool into which you type a keyword or phrase. The search tool then does some clever stuff and comes up with a list of all the sites and/or pages it knows of that might match your criteria. It's not a perfect system - most search engines will come up with their fair share of irrelevant material - but it does enable you to find material much quicker and more accurately than just surfing around and hoping you come across it. The web addresses of some worthwhile search engines are included below:-

Yahoo! - http://www.yahoo.co.uk

Altavista - http://www.altavista.digital.com

Hotbot - http://www.hotbot.com

Infoseek - http://www.infoseek.com

Lycos - http://www.lycos.com

Excite - http://www.excite.com

Northern Light - http://www.nlsearch.com

You'll probably find that the top three are normally the most useful for your purposes, but everyone tends to have their personal favourites (all these are available by direct links on the Parks School site - have a look at the resource pages).

Mind you, even using a search engine requires quite lot of time to search through all the results they churn out, often into the thousands of sites, many of which will be irrelevant. If only we could cut out some of this laborious legwork so we could get to the information we want faster…

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- Letting the computer do the hard work!

(Using the Copernic search tool)

Well the good news is that we can! Installed on the Parks machine is a brilliant program called "Copernic 99" - we'll call it Copernic from now on. What Copernic does is so clever that it can save you literally hours of fruitless web surfing, leaving you free to find the information that you want fast! From the outside it looks exactly like any other search engine - just type in the word and let it search away. However, instead of searching just one search engine it sends off queries to ten or more. Then, when it gets the results back, it removes all the doubled up entries (from multiple search engines listing the same site), ranks them all by percentage (most likely = better match = higher percentage) and displays them for you to browse at your leisure. It is constantly updated and can even search specialist search engines (for example, it has a set it uses to find information on health issues) giving you even more flexibility. Sounds good? Here's a quick tutorial on how to use Copernic 99:-

View the desktop. If you currently have the browser running, you'll temporarily need to get rid of it. Click the 0 symbol in the top right hand corner of the window to minimise it until later.
Double click the Copernic 99 icon. Next to "The internet" icon should be another one called "Copernic 99". Double click it to load the Copernic program.
Start a new search. Across the top of the screen is a toolbar. Clicking the "New" button initiates a new search.
Follow the wizard. A wizard is a short piece of computer program designed to guide you through how to do a task - in this case, start a new search. You'll be asked what category you wish to search in (normally that will be "The Web" or "Health"), whether you want to do a quick, normal, or detailed search, and whether you want to search for all the words in your search query, any word in your search query, or the exact phrase entered. Once you're happy with all the options you've chosen, click "Search Now".
Watch it go! You can now watch it as it searches. The blue bars represent it's progress with each individual search engine, with the number at the end being the number of sites it's located which are relevant. When all the bars reach the end, the search will end.
Choose what to do. A dialog box now pops up asking you if you want to browse the results now. You can choose either, but it's more than likely you will want to, so click "Yes"
Have a look. A new page should now pop up with all the sites you've found, plus a short description. Browse to your hearts content, clicking whichever ones take your fancy - one click is all it takes to get to any of the sites shown. When you've finished, click the oblong box marked "Copernic 99" in the taskbar at the bottom of the screen to return to the main program.

That's about it really. Copernic has many more advanced features which you can obtain information on by clicking the Help menu. Any previous search can be revisited by right clicking (e.g. clicking the right mouse button) the name of the search (in the upper of the main two windows), and selecting "Browse" from the menu which then pops up.

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"Practice makes perfect!"

That's it! I've taught you everything you need to know to get the best out of the internet, from the moment you load up to the time to switch off. I hope it's been interesting and that you've learnt something that you feel is useful - I know it's been interesting for me! Going back in time a few years to when I knew nothing about the net, and trying to remember what help I needed to get started has made me realise that the only way I got through was by bumbling along - believe me, I could have done with this book! Anyway, before I go I do have one final piece of advice to give you…

Using the internet can be a frustrating experience. Even when you know what you're doing as you do now, sometimes it can feel like you're banging your head against a brick wall. The fact is that it takes time and practice to learn the techniques which get you the information you want as quickly as possible. Sometimes you will feel that it isn't out there, but the chances are that it is - you just couldn't find it today. So, here are my top tips to help you find out the information you want - fast:-

Use Copernic. Since Copernic searches multiple search engines at once and brings together all the results, it can save you hours compared to using each individual search engine in turn.
Send out some e-mails. If you can't find one specific piece of info, but you're at a site with lots of material on the subject, send the author an e-mail - he might just be able to point you in the right direction.
Use web-directories. Web directories are huge lists of links on one subject which are maintained by a company or private individual. Often they'll feature reviews of the sites, telling you what they're about, what info they hold, and how well (and often) they're maintained. Finding one of these about your chosen subject can be a godsend, saving you the time and effort to trawl around a myriad of sites looking for the one you want.
Think laterally. Remember, on the internet there's a million different ways to the same piece of information, so how else could you get there? What other word(s) could you search with? What other organisations might hold such information? What other routes could you use to attack the problem (think of it like navigating round some road-works when you're off on holiday!)?
Don't worry! Sometimes it can take quite a time, but it's really not worth getting frustrated about. If you get stressed up by it, just switch the machine off and have a go another day - if you feel your wasting time, this is often the best course of action.
Practice, practice, practice! It does take time to learn how to bring together everything to become effective at finding information fast, so expect to have to do a bit of practice and most of all be patient. Believe me, in the end when you find a piece of information in seconds that you know you couldn't have got anywhere else you'll realise it was all worthwhile.

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