Computer Basics
Web Skills
The World Wide Web is key to todays environment. Nearly all businesses and companies have their own website. The Web is a useful tool
for obtaining information and learning as well as shopping and doing online banking. Understanding the internet is an extremely useful tool
and opens up a whole new world.
Skill Sections
Web addresses and URL's
How to Send an Email and Free Email Accounts
Search Engines
Downloading Files off the Internet
Web addresses and URL's
Every webpage, image, sound or graphic has their own address on the internet. A website is a collection of all of these displayed in ushc as way
so that it is useful. To reach a webpage you need to type in its Uniform Resource Locator (URL).
The first part of the URL is: http://
This is a protocol and tells the servers what rules to use when accessing pages. Most browsers now assume http:// so it is not essential
to type it every time you want and address.
The second part is www. which is the world wide web.
The third part is the domain name such as computer-sussed.co.uk
There is then an option to place a / (forward slash) which can be used to go to a specific page on that server such a
www.computer-sussed.co.uk/basics.html
All of these different elements make up the URL which points to specific files all over the internet.
<< Back to Top
Email
Email is essential to today's world and is an extremely quick way of staying in contact with a person. Email is delivered almost immediately to whom you wish to send it to.
Email is just like receiving a letter through the post yet you access it on a computer and can reply on a computer. The benefits of email are that it is much faster and
it is free.
Companies such a Hotmail and
Yahoo offer free email access where you can set up an email address and send and receive an email within minutes.
To send an email you first need an email address which can be obtained from the above links. Once this is set up you can click on Compose and start to type what you wish to
send to someone. In the address field you type the email address of the person you wish to send an email to such as help@computer-sussed.co.uk. When you have entered the address
you can give it a subject such as what is contained within the letter. Once this is complete click on send and your email will be sent instantly to the other persons inbox.
<< Back to Top
Search Engines
Search Engines are an extremely useful tool for finding information you want on the internet. Services
such as
Google and
Yahoo offer these facilities
which enable you to find exactly what you want.
To Perform a basic search visit http://www.google.co.uk and click on the search box that appears. Here you
can type in exactly what you want to look for such as Free Online Computer Help. Entering this into the search box and clicking search makes
Google look for all the
web pages on the internet that match this query.
Once Google has found the pages that relate to the query it displays them in order of relevance. You can now se the sites name a a short
description underneath it, this
can give you a clue as to how useful the site is. You can then click on a link to visit that webpage and find the information you need. Should the information not be there
you can go back and look at other pages or refine your search by being more specific. Google also offers an advanced search to further customise the results.
<< Back to Top
Downloading Files Off the Internet
The internet can also be used to download files such as antivirus programmes and other useful tools. These can either be purchased although there are free
ones available
such as AVG from http://free.grisoft.com/. This is useful as it provides instant access to software and products
all through a click of the mouse.
Although this is all well and good some precautions should be taken as some downloads may contain viruses and malicious software which can harm your computer. The best method
is to scan the download with your antivirus programme. Most modern antivirus programmes scan all incoming files and should flag up any known viruses. As well as viruses
people also download music through the internet whcih is good if you do it legally as it provides instant access to music. Some people do this illegally through file sharing programs.
Do Not do this as it infringes copyright law and you can be held liable for downloading it and face fines and prison snetences. If you do wish to download music visit sites
like
www.tescodownloads.com/
www.easymusic.com/
<< Back to Top
This completes the Web Skills Basics Section. We hope that you now feel more confident on the internet and can browse to websites with ease. Congratulations on
completing the tutorial and take a look at our other tutorials that are all available for free.
Other Tutorials
Basic Computer Skills
Word Processing Skills
<< Back to Computer Basics
| 
