300 Montgomery Ave.  Oxnard, CA. 93036

805-988-9540...nccorthu@sbcglobal.net

CAL - PAC'S

HAPPY HUNTER

QUICK GUIDE

TO SEARCHING

THE

WORLD WIDE WEB

SEARCHING THE WEB

We all know of the unending resources and information available on the World Wide Web of the Internet.

Most of us ( if not all of us) also have a hard time finding what we want. This flyer is designed to get you going quick and easy. At least that's our hope. A number of working web searchers are listed in the appendix to this flyer.

Step 1.

Phrase your question in plain English. You might even want to write it down. Try to make your question as simple as possible. Do not ask a compound question.

E.g. Give me the pages on the weather in Ventura California. OR

NOT I want to know about the weather and in particular Ventura County Weather.

Step 2.

Take the question and pull out the operative words in it.

I.E. Weather Ventura

Step 3.

Now comes the weird part. Search engines and catalogues on the World Wide Web basically operate on Boolean Algebra ( or Boolean Logic). For those over 40 that's the thing your algebra teacher spent about 20 minutes on since nobody knew what to do with it.

Computers love it. Most all of your searching in computer databases as well as the World Wide Web is done by using what's known as Boolean algebra.

To use it you simply need to remember the connecting words. The ones used most often are

AND - OR - NOT

These connectors, as they are sometimes called, will allow you to reduce your search to get a manageable number of responses. The problem that most people end up with is that they get something like 20,000+ responses back. Obviously, too much. Your search was too general. The Boolean connectors will cut down the number of responses and make them more in line with what you are actually looking for.

In our example, if you try just "weather" you will be flooded with responses but if you restrict it to "weather and ventura" you will only get files that will respond to both words. Many fewer results since there is not much on Ventura weather, it being a pretty small part of this planet. I usually never use capitals in these requests but sometimes the systems are case sensitive, so you may want to try things both ways. Its usually a good custom to stick with small letters on the Internet, especially in picking your E-Mail address. Put in a couple of caps in the middle and your friends will never find you. But I guess it can stroke the ego.

You can expand upon this by putting in things like "weather and ventura or temperature and ventura". The key is to experiment with the searchers now.

SOME CAVEATS AND QUESTIONS

Some of the search engines and catalogues do not need or will not respond to the use of the connectors. In most of these you just add words and assume that there is an "AND" in between each. Some of them however, make it an "OR".

You will also note that each of the searchers has a pretty small box in which to put your request. But it will scroll as you type.

To use the searchers that are listed in the appendix, you will need to type the exact wording of each URL ( Uniform Resource Locator) into the appropriate box on your screen, usually along the top. It will normally have something like http://XXXXXXXXXX in it. replace the part after http:// with the URL that's given and hit <Enter>. After you connect with the search engine you will want to save it to your bookmarks that way you won't have to repeat that awful typing again.

To add a bookmark look to your menu across the top and find the word "BOOKMARKS"; click on it to drop the menu. Look for the "ADD BOOKMARKS: submenu that's it. you will find that the next time you click on the "BOOKMARKS" item that a description of the search engine will show up. You just click on it to get to that place again.

GOOD LUCK AND HAPPY HUNTING.

For more information contact me at "nccorthu@rain.org"

Gerhard W. Orthuber Cal - Pac Computing

SOME SEARCH ENGINE URLS

Assorted Search Engines and Catalogues 1/97

"http://lycos.com/"--Welcome to Lycos

"http://www.yahoo.com/" --Yahoo!

"http://www.search.com/" --SEARCH.COM

http://www.infoseek.com/" --Infoseek

"http://webcrawler.com/"--WebCrawler

"http://www.excite.com/"--Excite Home

"http://altavista.digital.com/" --AltaVista Search:

http://snap.com - Snap Com

"http://go.com - Go Com