using Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.01

What is a "web search"?

What is a "search engine"?

Can you find out where Pablo Picasso was born? Where would you look?

How about the current price of gold? Where would you look?

The IE toolbar.

Going Back and Forward

The most basic elements of navigating with a browser include the use of the Back and Forward buttons on the toolbar. Back takes you to the previously visited site, while Forward is only available after you have used the Back button and want to move forward from there. 

Using the Go menu

The Go menu on Netscape Navigator reveals your browsing trail for most of the current session. That is, it shows the sites you've visited. It is in reverse chronological order: the most recently visited site is on the top of the list. What was the first place visited on the Go menu to the right?

Go to any previously visited site by selecting it in this window.

The Go menu on the toolbar. 

Open Location vs. a search string

Open a location from the Open button on the toolbar (or from the File menu ) when you know the exact address (also known as "location" or "URL"). For example, to go to the National Public Radio site, whose address I know, I would type the URL into the Open Location dialog box:

www.npr.org

Notice that I do not need to type in http://.

Use a search string in a search engine, such as Yahoo, Lycos, Excite, AltaVista. A search string is simply a group, or string, of key words that sum up what you are looking for. Use a search engine if you don't know the address of what you're looking for.

The open location dialog box.

Find

The Find... command from the Edit menu of IE (or Find button on the toolbar of Navigator 2 and 3) is very limited. It is not an Internet search. It merely searches for the word or words (search string) on the current web page. It operates like a word search in a word processor.

The Find box.

Using different search engines

If your search string does not yield what you're looking for, change the search string (key words used) or change search engines. To switch search engines, simple click the Open button and type Lycos, Yahoo, Excite, AltaVista, or another engine by name. 

Special case of .com sites

Remember that if a URL is of the type,

www.sony.com

for example, then all you need to type is sony using the Open location button. The rest of the syntax is assumed. This applies only to .com addresses. The table to the right shows the domain designations.

Boolean operators

These are logical operators, such as AND, OR, NOT. They help refine your search in a search engine. For example, using AND between your key words will give you results where only both or all terms are present. For example, the search string

guacamole AND salad AND recipe

will likely produce more accurate and meaningful links than simply

guacamole salad recipe

which will produce links with any of these terms. 

Slow connections

Some connections are slow either because a server (computer) you're accessing is busy or because there's other traffic on the Internet interrupting your access to a site. Look at the status line on the bottom of the browser window to see what's happening.

The middle status bar message to the right shows the link that you will go to. This appears as you move the mouse over active text or object links in a Web page. It's often helpful to know where you'll go before you go there.

If it says "stalled" in the status bar, for example, then click the Stop button and then click the Refresh button (this stops the search and initiates a new connection).

Various status bar messages.

The Stop and Refresh buttons from the toolbar.

Getting to the main page

If a link takes you to the following URL, for example,

http://www.bu.edu/celop/MLL/IEprimer/WebPrimerIE.html

which is the page you're viewing now, then you can delete, from the Address (or URL) line (below), any segment after the slashes to go back in the directory of that site. If you deleted everything through /celop/..., then pressed the Return key, you would arrive at the main B.U. home page.

The Address field under the toolbar.

Using Britannica online from a B.U. account

The Encyclopedia Britannica is a vast collection of information on all areas of knowledge. Enter a search string in a Britannica search and receive the information itself, not just links to it. 

Using the OED online from a B.U. account

The Oxford English Dictionary is an authoritative source of definitions and etymology for words in the English language.