Go Places

You have mastered the basic elements of navigation. It is time to leave TIG and venture onto the World-Wide Web.

To go directly to a place, we must know the address. Every computer that is connected to the Web and every Web page that is stored on that computer has a unique address. In Internet lingo this is called a Uniform Resource Locator, usually shortened to URL (pronounced "you-are-ell"). The URL for the Websearchguide is http://www.websearchguide.ca.

You can enter an address directly in the Address box underneath the Toolbar (as we have done in the diagram below for NASA).

Alternately you can click on File | Open from the Menu Bar to get an window in which you type an Internet address into. When in this window you can click on the down arrow to view a short history of the places you have been and from there you can click on any of the addresses and travel to the page.

Exercise 1 - Going Places

This exercise takes you on a short foray onto the Web. Before setting off, you might like to print this page for easy reference. First, click once anywhere on the right frame to select it, then click on the Print button. (If you want to print the left frame, click once anywhere in the white space of the left frame, and choose Print.)

1. Click in the address bar to activate it.

Tip: Highlight the current address (URL). You can type your new URL right on top. Don't delete, don't backspace, just type on top of the highlighted location address.

2. Now type in one of the addresses below. To activate it, press the Enter key on your keyboard or click the Go button beside the Address Bar .

• National Library of Canada: http://www.nlc-bnc.ca
• Royal Bank of Canada: http://www.royalbank.com
• Government of Canada: http://canada.gc.ca/main_e.html
• CBC Kids Home Page: http://www.cbc4kids.ca/

• Public Broadcasting System - United States http://www.pbs.org
• NASA http://www.nasa.gov
• Lonely Planet: Down to Earth Travel Information http://www.lonelyplanet.com

Triple TIP:

• Once you have been surfing the Web for a while and frequent a site more than once, Explorer will use a feature called AutoComplete. This means that when you begin to type a URL you have been to before, Explorer will show a drop-down list of sites that you can choose from. As well, if you've been to a web site before and type the URL incorrectly, Explorer will correct the error.

• Also you don't need to enter http://. Explorer knows you want to go to a Web site and will fill in that bit.

• Or type a word in the Address Bar and press CTRL and Enter to have Explorer automatically enter http://www and .com on either side. (But, remember that not all web sites end with .com)

2. Watch what happens to the Explorer logo and to the Status Bar at the bottom.

Exercise 2 - The Uniform Resource Locator

In this exercise you will learn a trick about entering Uniform Resource Locators (URLs).

The URL for The Canadian Resource Page is : http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Unofficial/Canadiana/index.html

Go to The Canadian Resource Page, take a look, and then shorten the URL get more information about the main site.

1. Click on the address bar to activate it .
2. Enter http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Unofficial/Canadiana/index.html
3. Visit the page. This has been an oft-cited resource since the early days the Web.
4. Point your mouse arrow in the location field again and click once. This activates the field again.
5. Click again to get the cursor. Shorten the URL by deleting the Unofficial/Canadiana/index.html portion. The remaining part of the URL will be http://www.cs.cmu.edu
6. Press Enter. This will take you to the home page for the School of Computing Science - Carnegie Mellon!

You are now a surfer! Where to next?

You've been around some now and have a history. Let's look at the History Folder and the Cache.