The Extreme Searcher's Internet Handbook: A Guide for the Serious Searcher - Softcover

Hock, Randolph

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1937290026 ISBN 13: 9781937290023

Verlag: INFORMATION TODAY INC, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

An essential guide for anyone who conducts research on the internet—including librarians, teachers, students, business professionals, and writers—this fully revised handbook details what users must know to take full advantage of internet search tools and resources. From the latest online tools to the new and enhanced services offered by standbys such as Google, the major search engines and their myriad of possibilities are thoroughly discussed. This revamped fourth edition also features chapters on fact-checking sites and popular social networking sites as well as a collection of up-to-date screenshots for visual reference. For those with little to moderate searching experience, friendly, easy-to-follow guidelines to the world of Web research are provided, while experienced searchers will discover new perspectives on content and techniques.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Randolph Hock teaches customized courses on how to use the internet effectively through his company, Online Strategies. He is the author of The Extreme Searcher’s Guide to Web Search Engines, The Traveler’s Web, and Yahoo! to the Max. He lives in Vienna, Virginia.

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The Extreme Searcher's Internet Handbook

A Guide for the Serious Searcher

By Randolph Hock

Information Today, Inc.

Copyright © 2013 Randolph Hock
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-937290-02-3

Contents

Copyright, 
Foreword, by Gary Price, 
Acknowledgments, 
Introduction, 
About The Extreme Searcher's Web Page, 
Chapter 1 Basics for the Serious Searcher, 
Chapter 2 Directories and Portals, 
Chapter 3 Search Engines: The Basics, 
Chapter 4 Search Engines: The Specifics, 
Chapter 5 Discussion Groups, Forums, Newsgroups, and Their Relatives, 
Chapter 6 An Internet Reference Shelf, 
Chapter 7 Sights and Sounds: Finding Images, Audio, and Video, 
Chapter 8 News Resources, 
Chapter 9 Finding Products Online, 
Chapter 10 Your Own Place on the Web: Participating and Publishing, 
Conclusion, 
Glossary, 
URL List, 
About the Author, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Basics for the Serious Searcher

In writing this book, I have made the assumption that the reader knows the internet basics — what it is, how to get connected, most common terminology, and so forth. The "basics" covered in this chapter involve background information that serious searchers need to know to be fully conversant with internet content and issues, as well as general ways of approaching internet resources to find just what you need. I go over some details already familiar to many readers, but I include this background material 1) to allow readers to understand more fully the characteristics, content, utility, and nuances of the internet in order to use it more effectively, and 2) to help those who find themselves teaching others how to use the internet, by providing answers to some of the more frequently asked questions.

As for general approaches to finding the right resources, this chapter provides an overview and comparison of the kinds of "finding tools" available and a set of strategies that can be applied. The coverage of strategies goes into some detail on topics (such as Boolean logic) that will also be encountered elsewhere in the book. Integral to all of this are some aspects and issues regarding the content that is found on the internet. These aspects include the questions of retrospective coverage, quality of content, and general accessibility of content, particularly the issue of the Deep Web (aka, the Invisible Web, the Hidden Web). Woven into this content fabric are issues, such as copyright, that affect how information found on the internet can be used. Although only lightly touched upon, it is important that every serious user have an awareness of these issues. Lastly, the chapter provides some useful resources for keeping up with the latest internet tools, content, and issues.

The Pieces of the Internet

First, the internet and the web are not synonymous, although the terms are frequently used interchangeably. As late as the mid-1990s, the internet had some clearly distinguishable parts, as defined by their functions. Much internet usage could be thought of as internet sans content. It was simply a communications channel that allowed easy transfer of information. Typically, a user at one university could use the internet to send or request a file from someone at another university using FTP (File Transfer Protocol). Sending email via the internet was becoming tremendously popular. A user of a commercial search service such as Dialog or LexisNexis could harness the internet as an alternative to proprietary telecommunications networks, basically sending and receiving proprietary information. "Content" parts of the internet could indeed be found, such as Usenet newsgroups, where anyone with a connection could access a body of publicly available information. Gophers (menu-based directories allowing access to files, mainly at universities) were also beginning to provide access to content.

The world changed, and content was destined to become king, when Tim Berners-Lee at CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire) in Geneva created the World Wide Web in 1991. The web provided an easy-to-use interface for both potential content providers and users, with a GUI (Graphical User Interface) incorporating hypertext point-and-click navigation of text, graphics, and sounds, and created what was for most of us at that time an unimaginable potential for access to information.

Within less than five years, the web had overtaken email and FTP in terms of internet traffic. By 2000, usage of the other parts of the internet was becoming fused into the web. Usenet newsgroups were being accessed through a web interface, and web-based email was becoming the main — or only — form of email for millions. FTP was typically being managed through a web interface. Gophers were replaced by web directories and search engines, and gophers are now extinct, except for the furry kind.

A Very Brief History

The following selection of historical highlights provides a perspective for better understanding the nature of the internet. It should be emphasized that the internet is the result of many technologies (computing, time-sharing of computers, packet-switching, etc.) and many visionaries and great technical thinkers coming together over a period of a few decades. In addition, what they were able to accomplish was dependent upon minds and technologies of preceding decades. This selection of highlights is merely a sampling and leaves out many essential technical achievements and notable contributors. The points here are drawn primarily from the resources listed at the end of this timeline.

1957 The USSR launches Sputnik.

1958 Largely as a result of the Sputnik launch, ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) is established to push the U.S. ahead in science and technology. High among its interests is computer technology.

1962 J. C. R. Licklider writes about his vision of a globally interconnected group of computers providing widespread access to data and programs; the RAND Corporation begins research on distributed communications networks for military purposes.

Early 1960s Packet-switching moves from theory to practice.

Mid- to Late-1960s ARPA develops ARPANET to promote the "cooperative networking of time-sharing computers" with four host computers connected by the end of 1969 (Stanford Research Institute, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, and University of Utah).

1965 The term hypertext is coined by Ted Nelson.

1968 The Tymnet nationwide time-sharing network is built.

1971 ARPANET grows to 23 hosts, including universities and government research centers.

1972 The International Network Working Group (INWG) is established to advance and set standards for networking technologies; the first chairman is Vinton (Vint) Cerf, who is later often referred to as the "Father of the Internet."

1972–1974 Commercial database services — Dialog, SDC Orbit, Lexis, the New York Times DataBank, and others — begin making their subscription services available through dial-up networks.

1973 ARPANET makes its first international connections at the University College of London (England) and the Royal Radar Establishment (Norway).

1974 "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection," which specifies the details of TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), is published by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn.

1974...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: INFORMATION TODAY INC
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1937290026
• ISBN 13: 9781937290023
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 4
• Anzahl der Seiten: 315
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar