Surfing safe and easy
| Category: Net Business Start ups | Date: 2001-11-11 |
Inspired by questions posted to several different help groups, the following information is an attempt to inform web users about the most common concerns expressed. People with family accounts, and new users will find these subjects especially useful, but there are things here even experienced surfers can use.
BOOKMARKS
The first thing you should learn when you get onto the Internet is how to use your bookmarks. There is nothing more frustrating then leaving a site and then finding out that it has been lost into the vastness of cyberspace, sometimes never to be found again. This could have been prevented with two quick clicks of your mouse. Bookmarking is so easy it is recommended that you immediately bookmark any website you dont want to chance losing. Even if you vaguely suspect you may want to return to in the future, bookmark it. its easier to delete an unused bookmark then it is to find a lost site.
To set a bookmark in Netscape: While you are online and at the website you want to save, click on the word "Bookmarks" at the top of the browser then click on the words "add bookmarks" and youre done. To remove a bookmark from Netscape: you dont need to be online to do this. Click on the word "Bookmarks" at the top of the browser then click on the words "go to bookmarks" and a new screen will open with a list of all your bookmarks in it. Click on the bookmark you want to remove and it will become highlighted, now left click on it and a menu will appear. Click "delete" from the menu and the bookmark is gone.
To set a bookmark in Internet Explorer: While youre online and at the website you want to save, click on the word "Favorites" at the top of the browser then click on the words "add to Favorites" and youre done. To remove a bookmark from Internet Explorer: you dont need to be online to do this. Click on the word "Favorites" at the top of the browser then click on the words "Organize Favorites" and a new screen will open with a list of all your bookmarks in it. Click on the bookmark you want to remove and it will become highlighted, now left click on it and a menu will appear. Choose "delete" from the menu and the bookmark is gone
CHILD PROTECTION
There will be other tips on how to protect yourself and your children in other areas of this page, what we are dealing with here is how to protect your child from viewing things you dont want them to see. You can do this quit effectively by installing one of the site restriction programs into your computer. There are several different types you can choose from. They basically work by comparing any site that your computer tries to access to a list of restriction criteria you set, and if it finds a match it will not load the site. You can find all of them in the security/parental control section of TUCOWS.COM http://www.tucows.com/. Most of these programs can be downloaded for free, but make sure you check them out and get the one that fits you.
TERMINOLOGY YOU SHOULD KNOW
---Download:
Moving a file from the Internet to your computer.
---Upload:
Moving a file from your computer to the Internet.
---Link:
Links can be pictures or words. If they are words they will be a different color and underlined. All links will make your mouse pointer change shape when you move it over them. If you click when your pointer is over them you will be moved to the new page or website it is linked to.
---Binary:
Another word for picture.
---U.R.L.:
The Internet address of a website. For instance if you type the U.R.L. http://secondfloor.hypermart.net, without the < > signs, in the location bar of your browser then press enter you will go to that site on the Internet.
---Browser:
A program that is used to contact and obtain data from the Internet. Internet Explorer and Netscape are browsers.
---FAQ:
Means Frequently Asked Questions
---Newsgroups: (also called Usenet)
A world-wide system of discussion groups. At last count there were 74000 of them. Discussion is not in real time, it is done through leaving messages and reading messages that other people have left. If you can think of a subject you can probably find a Newsgroup for it. If you have an interest in a subject, the Newsgroups are well worth your time. To learn how to use Newsgroups, just check out the help section of your browser.
-WORD OF CAUTION: Never give your real (permanent) E-Mail address in the Newsgroups. (more on this in the E-Mail and Spam sections)
---Posting:
Entering a message into a network communications system. Example: Leaving a message in a newsgroup or message board is called a posting.
---E-zines:
Means an online magazine. They can be totally online (not published in the "real world") like or they can be copies of "real world" magazines and newspapers. Just search for the word E-zine in any search engine.
---Spam:
An inappropriate use of a mailing list, or USENET or other networked communications facility by sending the same message to a large number of people who didnt ask for it.
---Real Time:
Means to see it happen or to read or hear it as it is being said.
For more terminology see MATISSES glossary of Internet Terms
http://www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html#S
INTERNET USAGE STATS
1) There are currently 100 to 150 million users on the Internet. There is expected to be 400 to 450 million users on the Internet by the year 2003
2) There is currently 2.8 billion dollars spent per year on products sold over the Internet. There is expected to be 1.2 trillion dollars spent per year over the Internet by the year 2003.
PURCHASING OVER THE INTERNET
It is statistically safer to use your credit card over the Internet then it is to use it in a restaurant or gas station. To improve your chances even more, never give your credit card number except to a site that provides you with a secure server. A secure server provides safeguards for the transfer of information that is 99.9999% impossible for an unauthorized person to intercept.
E-MAIL SAFETY FOR CHILDREN
E-mail is one of the Internets greatest features, but it also has its dangers and headaches. You can minimize these things for you and your children, by some simple techniques. First, never allow your permanent address to be given out unless you are positive the person it is given to will use it responsibly. If you want your children to be able to use the E-mail with people you are not sure of yet, then get a Free hot mail account for each of them (yourself too if you want). Do this so that if someone starts harassing or bothering by E-Mail you can discontinue that account and get another under a different address. You can get a free E-Mail accounts from any of the following places.
HOTMAIL http://www.hotmail.com/
JUNO http://www.juno.com/
MAILCITY http://www.mailcity.com/
MAILEXCITE http://mailexcite.com/
NETADDRESS http://netaddress.usa.net/
ROCKETMAIL http://www.rocketmail.com/
Only let children get E-Mail if they agree that you can read some of their letters every once in a while, and then do it. You MUST monitor what your children are receiving if you are going to keep on top of any potential problems.
PROTECTING YOURSELF FROM SPAM
No one on the Internet will be completely free from E-Mail spam. You can minimize the amount of spam you get though, by following a few simple rules.
1) Never post your real E-mail address in any Newsgroups or classified adds unless it is absolutely necessary.
2) Never reply to spam that you do get for ANY other reason then you are truly interested in what it is offering.
3) Never send back an E-Mail to them and request them to remove you from their mailing list even if they say you should. This usually has just the opposite effect. When they receive your e-mail they will usually remove you from their personal list but they will then sell your address to other mailing lists as an active and verified address. This will result in you receiving even more spam from other sources. If you dont send back to them they will most likely drop you off the list as an inactive and unresponsive recipient anyhow.
4) Read the whole page when you sign up for subscriptions and memberships. Many of them have a pre-checked box that says you agree to receive other "special offers" from them. Make sure you remove the check mark from this box and it will save you getting a lot of unwanted E-Mail. In general, just being aware of where and who you are giving your address to will can you receiving a lot of unwanted E-Mail.
CHAT ROOMS
Chat Rooms have gotten an undeserved reputation, especially from the media. The real fact is, that out of the thousands and thousands of chatrooms on the Internet, less then 1% of them deserve the rep.
A chat room is nothing more than people of common interest getting together in one area of the Internet to talk to each other. Chat room topics run the range from general talk you would find over coffee in any cafe, to the highly specialized, such as computer programming and bible studies. Some other notable rooms deal with drug addiction, homework help, suicide prevention etc. Look them up in any search engine and you will find that there are a lot of chat rooms that are actually good for you and your children to go to.
There are three chat programs that are hard to find on search engines, that are worth a special mention.
ICQ: http://www.icq.com
ICQ is a very extensive program that allows you to chat, leave messages for people, be notified when friends and colleagues are online, transfer files etc. Multi user capable. Must be experienced to be appreciated. Highly recommended for everyone.
MIRC: http://www.mirc.co.uk
Mirc is a program that allows you to use the Internet Relay Chat servers. The IRC network is a virtual meeting place where people from all over the world can meet and talk. Easy to use, the irc network has over 50,000 chat rooms that cover every topic possible. Rooms are listed on server menus for easy selection. You can also make your own chat room on the irc channels
POW: http://www.tribal.com/
Powwow is another chat program much like ICQ, It has the added feature of allowing communications by voice using a microphone and speaker setup. You must have a sound card to use this feature
CHAT ROOM SAFETY
With common sense the chat rooms are a safe environment but one that should be used with a little street sense.
1) Do not accept files from anyone you do not know or trust.
2) Do not give anyone your E-Mail address unless you know and trust them, and never give it out over the open channel.
3) Help your children find appropriate rooms and like you should with their E-Mail, read what is being said in the room from time to time.
4) Tell your children to stay in the public areas and not to go into private chatscreens. This is a favorite tactic of harassers and predators. They cannot operate effectively in the public area because there are to many eyes watching.
5) DO NOT give out your phone number or home address unless you know and trust the person VERY, VERY well.
SEARCH ENGINES and DIRECTORIES
Search engines and Directories are two different things.
---YAHOO http://www.yahoo.com/ is a directory. It works by pre-indexing a small percentage of the Internet then searches only the index when you do an engine search. Therefore the results you get with a directory are taken from only a small sample of the available Internet sites that may fit your search criteria.
---INFOSEEK http://infoseek.go.com/ is a search engine. It attempts to index and catagorize every page it finds on the Internet. When you do a search in a search engine the results are therefore taken from a far larger database which gives you a wider choice of results.
Each engine and directory responds differently to the same command so there is no one instruction that will work on all engines. Before you try to use them you should go to the help section of the engine and find out how it works, this will save you a lot of time and frustration when you are using them to do a search.
One search engine that deserves a recommendation is ASK JEEVES http://www.askjeeves.com/
It uses the searching power of some of the top engines and one question to it will return the top ten or so pages from each one of the others. Using this engine is like searching all the others at once.
FREE PROGRAMS
There are free upgrades and programs for your computer available everywhere on the Internet. Be cautious with these, they can carry viruses. If you cannot download directly from the manufacturer or supplier use one of the large download sites.
TUCOWS http://www.tucows.com/
DOWNLOAD.COM http://www.download.com/
are two sites that between them have thousands of programs available. Every program on these two sites are virus checked and certified clean.
VIRUSES
You can only get a computer virus one way, you have to install it into your computer. This can only be done a few ways. It was present in a program that you installed on your computer or you opened it in your E-Mail program when you opened an attachment. You cannot get a virus from reading text on the Internet, from the text of an E-Mail or from music CDs. You can only get it from running an executable file (any file that ends with a .exe extension). Executable files are what all programs on your computer are. You can get very reliable virus protection for your computer by installing the MCAFEE Virus protection program http://www.mcafee.com/
If the information on this page helped you, it might help your friends to so why not forward it on to them.
About the Author
James Thomas owns three Internet business websites and is the publisher of Succeeding 101 - lessons from Cyberspace.
Sample copy at http://secondfloor.hypermart.net/
or subscribe by sending a blank E-mail to
succeeding101-subscribe@listbot.com
:To contact see details below.
info@geosys.com
http://www.geosystems.com/
BOOKMARKS
The first thing you should learn when you get onto the Internet is how to use your bookmarks. There is nothing more frustrating then leaving a site and then finding out that it has been lost into the vastness of cyberspace, sometimes never to be found again. This could have been prevented with two quick clicks of your mouse. Bookmarking is so easy it is recommended that you immediately bookmark any website you dont want to chance losing. Even if you vaguely suspect you may want to return to in the future, bookmark it. its easier to delete an unused bookmark then it is to find a lost site.
To set a bookmark in Netscape: While you are online and at the website you want to save, click on the word "Bookmarks" at the top of the browser then click on the words "add bookmarks" and youre done. To remove a bookmark from Netscape: you dont need to be online to do this. Click on the word "Bookmarks" at the top of the browser then click on the words "go to bookmarks" and a new screen will open with a list of all your bookmarks in it. Click on the bookmark you want to remove and it will become highlighted, now left click on it and a menu will appear. Click "delete" from the menu and the bookmark is gone.
To set a bookmark in Internet Explorer: While youre online and at the website you want to save, click on the word "Favorites" at the top of the browser then click on the words "add to Favorites" and youre done. To remove a bookmark from Internet Explorer: you dont need to be online to do this. Click on the word "Favorites" at the top of the browser then click on the words "Organize Favorites" and a new screen will open with a list of all your bookmarks in it. Click on the bookmark you want to remove and it will become highlighted, now left click on it and a menu will appear. Choose "delete" from the menu and the bookmark is gone
CHILD PROTECTION
There will be other tips on how to protect yourself and your children in other areas of this page, what we are dealing with here is how to protect your child from viewing things you dont want them to see. You can do this quit effectively by installing one of the site restriction programs into your computer. There are several different types you can choose from. They basically work by comparing any site that your computer tries to access to a list of restriction criteria you set, and if it finds a match it will not load the site. You can find all of them in the security/parental control section of TUCOWS.COM http://www.tucows.com/. Most of these programs can be downloaded for free, but make sure you check them out and get the one that fits you.
TERMINOLOGY YOU SHOULD KNOW
---Download:
Moving a file from the Internet to your computer.
---Upload:
Moving a file from your computer to the Internet.
---Link:
Links can be pictures or words. If they are words they will be a different color and underlined. All links will make your mouse pointer change shape when you move it over them. If you click when your pointer is over them you will be moved to the new page or website it is linked to.
---Binary:
Another word for picture.
---U.R.L.:
The Internet address of a website. For instance if you type the U.R.L. http://secondfloor.hypermart.net, without the < > signs, in the location bar of your browser then press enter you will go to that site on the Internet.
---Browser:
A program that is used to contact and obtain data from the Internet. Internet Explorer and Netscape are browsers.
---FAQ:
Means Frequently Asked Questions
---Newsgroups: (also called Usenet)
A world-wide system of discussion groups. At last count there were 74000 of them. Discussion is not in real time, it is done through leaving messages and reading messages that other people have left. If you can think of a subject you can probably find a Newsgroup for it. If you have an interest in a subject, the Newsgroups are well worth your time. To learn how to use Newsgroups, just check out the help section of your browser.
-WORD OF CAUTION: Never give your real (permanent) E-Mail address in the Newsgroups. (more on this in the E-Mail and Spam sections)
---Posting:
Entering a message into a network communications system. Example: Leaving a message in a newsgroup or message board is called a posting.
---E-zines:
Means an online magazine. They can be totally online (not published in the "real world") like or they can be copies of "real world" magazines and newspapers. Just search for the word E-zine in any search engine.
---Spam:
An inappropriate use of a mailing list, or USENET or other networked communications facility by sending the same message to a large number of people who didnt ask for it.
---Real Time:
Means to see it happen or to read or hear it as it is being said.
For more terminology see MATISSES glossary of Internet Terms
http://www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html#S
INTERNET USAGE STATS
1) There are currently 100 to 150 million users on the Internet. There is expected to be 400 to 450 million users on the Internet by the year 2003
2) There is currently 2.8 billion dollars spent per year on products sold over the Internet. There is expected to be 1.2 trillion dollars spent per year over the Internet by the year 2003.
PURCHASING OVER THE INTERNET
It is statistically safer to use your credit card over the Internet then it is to use it in a restaurant or gas station. To improve your chances even more, never give your credit card number except to a site that provides you with a secure server. A secure server provides safeguards for the transfer of information that is 99.9999% impossible for an unauthorized person to intercept.
E-MAIL SAFETY FOR CHILDREN
E-mail is one of the Internets greatest features, but it also has its dangers and headaches. You can minimize these things for you and your children, by some simple techniques. First, never allow your permanent address to be given out unless you are positive the person it is given to will use it responsibly. If you want your children to be able to use the E-mail with people you are not sure of yet, then get a Free hot mail account for each of them (yourself too if you want). Do this so that if someone starts harassing or bothering by E-Mail you can discontinue that account and get another under a different address. You can get a free E-Mail accounts from any of the following places.
HOTMAIL http://www.hotmail.com/
JUNO http://www.juno.com/
MAILCITY http://www.mailcity.com/
MAILEXCITE http://mailexcite.com/
NETADDRESS http://netaddress.usa.net/
ROCKETMAIL http://www.rocketmail.com/
Only let children get E-Mail if they agree that you can read some of their letters every once in a while, and then do it. You MUST monitor what your children are receiving if you are going to keep on top of any potential problems.
PROTECTING YOURSELF FROM SPAM
No one on the Internet will be completely free from E-Mail spam. You can minimize the amount of spam you get though, by following a few simple rules.
1) Never post your real E-mail address in any Newsgroups or classified adds unless it is absolutely necessary.
2) Never reply to spam that you do get for ANY other reason then you are truly interested in what it is offering.
3) Never send back an E-Mail to them and request them to remove you from their mailing list even if they say you should. This usually has just the opposite effect. When they receive your e-mail they will usually remove you from their personal list but they will then sell your address to other mailing lists as an active and verified address. This will result in you receiving even more spam from other sources. If you dont send back to them they will most likely drop you off the list as an inactive and unresponsive recipient anyhow.
4) Read the whole page when you sign up for subscriptions and memberships. Many of them have a pre-checked box that says you agree to receive other "special offers" from them. Make sure you remove the check mark from this box and it will save you getting a lot of unwanted E-Mail. In general, just being aware of where and who you are giving your address to will can you receiving a lot of unwanted E-Mail.
CHAT ROOMS
Chat Rooms have gotten an undeserved reputation, especially from the media. The real fact is, that out of the thousands and thousands of chatrooms on the Internet, less then 1% of them deserve the rep.
A chat room is nothing more than people of common interest getting together in one area of the Internet to talk to each other. Chat room topics run the range from general talk you would find over coffee in any cafe, to the highly specialized, such as computer programming and bible studies. Some other notable rooms deal with drug addiction, homework help, suicide prevention etc. Look them up in any search engine and you will find that there are a lot of chat rooms that are actually good for you and your children to go to.
There are three chat programs that are hard to find on search engines, that are worth a special mention.
ICQ: http://www.icq.com
ICQ is a very extensive program that allows you to chat, leave messages for people, be notified when friends and colleagues are online, transfer files etc. Multi user capable. Must be experienced to be appreciated. Highly recommended for everyone.
MIRC: http://www.mirc.co.uk
Mirc is a program that allows you to use the Internet Relay Chat servers. The IRC network is a virtual meeting place where people from all over the world can meet and talk. Easy to use, the irc network has over 50,000 chat rooms that cover every topic possible. Rooms are listed on server menus for easy selection. You can also make your own chat room on the irc channels
POW: http://www.tribal.com/
Powwow is another chat program much like ICQ, It has the added feature of allowing communications by voice using a microphone and speaker setup. You must have a sound card to use this feature
CHAT ROOM SAFETY
With common sense the chat rooms are a safe environment but one that should be used with a little street sense.
1) Do not accept files from anyone you do not know or trust.
2) Do not give anyone your E-Mail address unless you know and trust them, and never give it out over the open channel.
3) Help your children find appropriate rooms and like you should with their E-Mail, read what is being said in the room from time to time.
4) Tell your children to stay in the public areas and not to go into private chatscreens. This is a favorite tactic of harassers and predators. They cannot operate effectively in the public area because there are to many eyes watching.
5) DO NOT give out your phone number or home address unless you know and trust the person VERY, VERY well.
SEARCH ENGINES and DIRECTORIES
Search engines and Directories are two different things.
---YAHOO http://www.yahoo.com/ is a directory. It works by pre-indexing a small percentage of the Internet then searches only the index when you do an engine search. Therefore the results you get with a directory are taken from only a small sample of the available Internet sites that may fit your search criteria.
---INFOSEEK http://infoseek.go.com/ is a search engine. It attempts to index and catagorize every page it finds on the Internet. When you do a search in a search engine the results are therefore taken from a far larger database which gives you a wider choice of results.
Each engine and directory responds differently to the same command so there is no one instruction that will work on all engines. Before you try to use them you should go to the help section of the engine and find out how it works, this will save you a lot of time and frustration when you are using them to do a search.
One search engine that deserves a recommendation is ASK JEEVES http://www.askjeeves.com/
It uses the searching power of some of the top engines and one question to it will return the top ten or so pages from each one of the others. Using this engine is like searching all the others at once.
FREE PROGRAMS
There are free upgrades and programs for your computer available everywhere on the Internet. Be cautious with these, they can carry viruses. If you cannot download directly from the manufacturer or supplier use one of the large download sites.
TUCOWS http://www.tucows.com/
DOWNLOAD.COM http://www.download.com/
are two sites that between them have thousands of programs available. Every program on these two sites are virus checked and certified clean.
VIRUSES
You can only get a computer virus one way, you have to install it into your computer. This can only be done a few ways. It was present in a program that you installed on your computer or you opened it in your E-Mail program when you opened an attachment. You cannot get a virus from reading text on the Internet, from the text of an E-Mail or from music CDs. You can only get it from running an executable file (any file that ends with a .exe extension). Executable files are what all programs on your computer are. You can get very reliable virus protection for your computer by installing the MCAFEE Virus protection program http://www.mcafee.com/
If the information on this page helped you, it might help your friends to so why not forward it on to them.
About the Author
James Thomas owns three Internet business websites and is the publisher of Succeeding 101 - lessons from Cyberspace.
Sample copy at http://secondfloor.hypermart.net/
or subscribe by sending a blank E-mail to
succeeding101-subscribe@listbot.com
:To contact see details below.
info@geosys.com
http://www.geosystems.com/
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