GETTING HELP WITH YOUR BROWSER

Although most browsers are easy to use, you may need help a t some point. Browsers provide comprehensive Help systems, which can answer many of your questions about browsing and the World Wide Web. Open the browser’s Help menu, and then choose Contents and Index. (Depending on your browser, this option may be called Contents, Help Contents, or something similar.) A Help window appears, listing all the topics for which help o r information is available. Look through the list of topics and choose the one that matches your interest. When you are done, click the Close button on the window's title bar. To get help from your browser maker's Web site, open your browser's Help menu and look for an option that leads you to the product's Web site. The resulting Web page will provide access to lists of frequently asked questions, links to help topics, and methods for getting in-depth technical support.

SEARCHING THE WEB

It is not always easy to find what you want on the Web). That is because there are tens of millions of unique Web sites, which include billions o f unique pages! This section explains the basics o f Web search tools and their use. However; there are many more specific search tools available than can lie  listed here. To search the Web successfully, you should use this section as a starting point; then spend some time experimenting with a variety o f search tools.

The two most basic and commonly used Web-based search tools are.

1. Directories.  A directory enables you to search for information by selecting categories o f subject matter. The director)' separates subjects into general categories (such as "companies"), which are broken into increasingly specific subcategories (such as "companies—construction—contractors—builders and designers"). After you select a category or subcategory, the director)1 displays
   a list of Web sites that provide content related to that subject.
2.  Search Engines.  A search engine lets you search for information by typing one or more words. The engine then displays a list o f Web pages that contain information related to your words. (This type o f look-up is called a keyword search.) Any search engine lets you conduct a search based on a single word. Most also let you search for multiple words, such as “ scanner A N D  printer."Many search engines accept “plain English” phrases or questions as the basis for your search, such as “movies starring Cary Grant" or “How do computer work?"
   
   
   Note that both types of search tools are commonly called search engines. While this terminology is not technically correct, the differences between the two types are blurring; most Web-based search tools provide both directories and keyword search engines. In fact, you will see that LookSmart provides a box for performing keyword searches as well as its list of categories for performing directory-style searches.
   
   
   Using a Search Engine
               Suppose you want to find some information about jet ink printers. You know there are many different types of printers that are available at a wide range of prices. You also know that you want a printer that prints in color rather than in black and white only. In the following exercise, you will use a search engine to help you find the information you need.

• Launch your Web browser.
• In the Location/Address bar, type http://www.google.com and press ENTER the google homepage opens in your browsers window.
• In the Search textbox, type “laptop” (include the quotation marks) and click the search button. A new page appears, listing Web pages that contain information relating to laptops. Note, however, that the list includes hundreds of thousands of pages. This happens because search engine assumes that a Web site is relevant to your needs if it contains terms that match the keyword you provide.
• To narrow the search result, you must provide more specific search criteria. Click in the search textbox and type “laptop” “color” (include the quotation marks); then click the Search button. Another page appears, listing a new selection of Web sites that matches your keywords. Note that this list is shorter than the original one, by thousands of matches.
• Scroll through the list and notice if it contains any duplicate entries. How many of the suggested pages actually seem irrelevant to your search criteria?  Duplicate and useless entries are two significant problems users encounter when working with search engines.

The preceding examples showed quotation marks surrounding some keywords. Many search engines require you to place quotation marks around multiple-word phrases. The marks tell the engine to treat the words as a phrase (“laptop" ), rather than as individual words (laptop” ) .  You can use quotation marks to separate parts of a multiple-part keyword ( “ ink jet printer" “ color " ) .  Here, the marks tell the engine that the word “color” is separate from the phrase “ink jet printer.” Fortunately, most search engines provide other tools to help you search more accurately and find Web pages that are more relevant to your interests. These include Boolean operators and advanced search tools, which are discussed in the following sections.

USING ADVANCED SEARCH OPTIONS

To overcome the problems of duplicate and irrelevant results, many search engines provide a set of advanced search options, sometimes called advanced tools. It is important to remember that each engine’s advanced tool set is somewhat different from the tool set of another, but they all have the same goal of helping you refine your search criteria to get the best results. In some engines, advanced search options include support for phrase-based searching or Boolean operators, as already discussed. In other engines, an advanced search provides you with customized tools. At Yahoo!, for example, if you select the Advanced link, you can work in a special form to structure your search criteria. The form lets you use multiple words and phrases and specify whether any or all of the terms should be included in or omitted from the results. The form also provides tools that let you filter adult-oriented content (such as pornographic Web sites) from your results and search for information in a different language or from a given country. While some advanced tool sets allow you to use Boolean operators in their search forms, some do not. This is because some advanced search forms are based on Boolean logic and arc designed to help you create complex Boolean-based searches without deciding which operators to use or where to use them.