The World Wide Web (WWW) is a vast library of information. Since its inception in 1989, its popularity has mushroomed. This is mainly because of the scope of the information contained and the ease of access. On it can be found everything from weather forecasts to game cheats to information to help with coping with diabetes. The list is endless and forever growing.

The user views pages of information through a window called a browser. Pages are linked by text and image hotspots, to form a website (similar in principle to a book). These links can also extend beyond the current website to other sources of relevant information that can be located anywhere across the globe. Hence the information forms a web stretching across the globe.
 
The Website

Pages on the WWW are organised into distinct websites. Each website has its own unique address. This is generally in the form of:

http://www.beta.gamma (eg http://www.fastnet.co.uk)

The naming convention for the 'beta' and 'gamma' is the same as that for email addresses. Then each page on a site will have its own name, and will be separated from the website address by a '/' and generally of the format '.htm' or '.html' eg:

http://www.fastnet.co.uk/helpdesk.htm.

The default page you arrive at by just typing the site address (eg. http://www.fastnet.co.uk) is called the home page and will usually include the menu to take you around the site.
 
Linking

Links are provided to move from one page of information to another. These will be in the form of either underlined words, or /images. Rubbing the mouse over one of these links will change the pointer to a hand with forefinger extended. Clicking on the link will then jump to another page of information. These links can extend beyond the site to other sources of information (such as the links at the bottom of this page).
 
Browsing

The window through which you view the web pages is called a Web Browser. Fastnet supply a Microsoft product called Internet Explorer (currently on version 4).

Directly above the main window of information is the address field, in which is displayed the address of the current page. If you know the address of a page you would like to view, this can be typed in the field.

When moving from one page of information to the next, a rotating symbol in the top right hand corner (often called the hourglass) signifies that the browser is looking for the page called.

Above this is the navigation bar. The buttons relevant for browsing are as follows (if interested in any other buttons, then use the help facility within your browser):

Back - This button will take you back to the previous page. It can be used to follow your tracks backwards
Forward - If you have jumped back a page then this button will take you back to the original page
Stop - If you have clicked on a wrong link, or the hourglass is spinning indefinitely, then this button will cancel the search for information
Reload - If there is data missing from a page, then this button will pull all the information down afresh
Home - This button will put you through to the Home Page configured in the browser. For Fastnet customers this will usually be set to http://www.fastnet.co.uk
 
Finding Information

There are various ways of finding information on the WWW. As described above, if you know the address of the site you are visiting then you can access this directly by typing the address in the field. This has to be exact (and is case-sensitive) otherwise the page will not be found.

If the address is not known then the easiest way to find the site is to use one of the many search engines. By the library metaphor, these are the card catalogues, or indexes of web sites. There are a number of number of search engines, the most popular being the following:

Yahoo
Altavista
Excite
Infoseek
Lycos
Webcrawler
Hotbot

You can type in any word or phrase you choose and the engine will then search the web for information on that topic, listing it in order of relevance. By adding extra words, the search can be narrowed until the relevant sites are found. The best way to learn is to go off and explore...
 
Other Links

Altavista links to history

A web browser tutorial aimed primarily at Netscape users

Pasadena Public Library's Internet Tutorial