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Many people who choose to use online services in preference to the World Wide Web, do so only because of the perceived relative simplicity of the online service vs. the seemingly overwhelming vastness of the Web. Another reason for this is that someone may have steered them toward an inferior software or hardware product that made for an unfortunate experience in trying to integrate the Web into their lives. Once people take the short time necessary to download NETSCAPE 3.0 and discover how simple, efficient, informative and entertaining the web is, opinions quickly change.
This flight school is here for the very
purpose of
steering you around unnecessary hassles experienced by using inferior
products and services.
The online services are well aware of the fact that no matter how much they do and add to their services, the freedom, choices, features, and services available on the Web will surpass them. The reason for this is that the Web is not just one computer, but thousands of them all tied together into one usable network system. It is from the possibilities that this network opens to us that we derived the phrase, "Information Super Highway".
In addition to this is the fact that the cost for internet access is much less than that of online services. Online services charge quite substantially by the hour after your initial monthly allotment. There are four local Internet Access Providers (ISP'S) here in the High Desert that charge between $15 and $30 per month for unlimited (or practically unlimited) use of the Web. Each of them will provide you with NETSCAPE, and will help you (where we can't) to get everything up and running smoothly.
Finally, the last reason to abandon your online service in favor of the web is that most of todays well tailored web pages (including this one) are designed to be viewed on NETSCAPE 3.0 Why? Stay tuned for that answer!
Read
some well reasoned and compelling criticisms of a major Online Provider
(Come back when your finished)
Because it simply has emerged as the de-facto standard in the internet industry. Web Designers like myself are faced with a daily question... "Should I go through all the trouble to make sure this looks ok on 15 differerent browsers, or should I concentrate on making it look its best on NETSCAPE 3.0 ?" Rarely do we opt for the former. People who do the layout for magazines never have to worry about that. They know that everyone will see the same thing, therefore they don't have to compromise to a level of mediocrity. I hope you aren't looking at "The COM" and judging it through the window of anything else other than NETSCAPE 3.0 . That way, I know you are seeing all of what you are taking your time to download and judging it for what it is.
A few months ago I wasted 2 hours of my time because a guy at GNN said that I shouldn't cancel my account with them. He said that their new version can do everything NETSCAPE can do. I said "OK", downloaded it, and found that "The COM" looked downright ugly! "Yikes!" I said to myself. "Not only do the frames, animation, tables and formatting come out all wrong (or not at all) the graphics don't even display cleanly." So please, If you are watching this through GNN, please download NETSCAPE 3.0 . You can use it with your GNN account and everything will look just right!
This was covered pretty well in the definition above. I'll just provide the following FAQ here for your viewing pleasure and education. This is a good example of a FAQ and it also is regarded highly as the premiere FAQ on WWW facts!
Referred to as "Favorite Places" in America Online and as "Hotlists" elsewhere, the bookmark is simply a file kept on your browser that references URL's on the Internet that you would like to go to, or more likely return to, without having to search about to find it. It displays the files title and triggers the URL when selected. You will soon discover however, that simply creating a bookmark provides no assurance that you will remember to return to that cool site you liked. It is important therefore, to organize and categorize your bookmarks into folders and subfolders on a regular basis. Otherwise you will be spending alot of time surfing through them to find the thing you really need to find someday-- that is, if you don't discard them altogether.
Sometimes, you'll find yourself on a wild goose chase and if you don't
stay focused you will regret it.
Other times you'll find yourself on a wild goose chase and if you don't
stay focused you won't regret it. Links are that way. They make the Web
wonderful because they make it interactive and they make the web enticing
to get lost in a sea of intrigue. My advice is to take a link only when
you believe: a) That it won't detract you from the purpose, if any, you
had in browsing that file, or, b) that it will lead you further into the
purpose of your session. Anytime you step two or three links away from
your original document, you're in danger of completely losing your train
of original thought, so remember your cause. Of course, recreational browsing
(surfin') certainly has it's place and its tangents should be fully enjoyed!
As an example of what I'm taliking about, there are many links on this
page that are placed there only to provide you with an option for a brief
excursion with the hope that you'll be back. Many of these places, I trust,
you will find yourself at anyway, but I wanted you to have the option to
go there now if you wanted to now.
In regards to navigation, let me drop just a couple of gems of wisdom
to all you land bound recruits and save the rest for when you're Cadets:
A) Your browser's back button is the quickest
way back one or two steps. If you use the "return to home" buttons
on the bottoms of most pages, you'll sometimes be delayed by a partial
or complete reload, which is a waste of time.
B) Use the feauture of many web pages that display
an altered color on visited links as valuable landmarks on your journey.
On NETSCAPE 3.0 , you can set the amount of time in days the links will show
as visited, and this will help you as you use bookmarks on project.
C) Pass your mouse pointer over a link without
clicking on it and you will be able to view the URL that is referenced
by the link without commiting to it. It won't take too long before you
begin to recognize the destination by noticing things about the URL-- Such
as: Whether it's on the same page, same server, different server, and what
type of file it is by the extention.
Hypertext is a combination of text, formatting commands (tags) and file commands (URLs). Some URLs pull up graphics, while others hang around, turn some text yellow, and await a click from you before they can be activated. Such is the life of an URL. At some point soon, once you graduate from Cadet Training, you can put some basic formatting tags and URLs to use to spice up your entries into the Guestbook, the Commmunity Calendar, various message boards, and the Classified Ads. Hang in there rookie!
Not as big a deal as you may have heard people speculate.
Having a web page, like for your company, business, organization or
personal use, does not expose your personal files to Big Brother. All that
is exposed is what you want to publish on your site.
As a user, the only time you are supplying the internet with information
about yourself is when you email something or send data, via a form, to
an unsecure server. Even then, someone would have to take a pretty active
interest in your life and privacy to see it. The truth is, it is only as
easy to steal from your credit card via the internet as it is through other
conventional means (carbon copies, dishonest merchants, employees, etc.).
When you fill out a form, you are sending data to a server to trigger a special function. It is one of the easeiest and funnest things to do on the Web. Enough said.
Whenever you trigger an URL, what you are doing is initiating a download to your computer from a server. If there are graphics and other files within the document you are downloading, then there is a separate download for each item. Once those items get to you they are stored on your cache, a special directory under NETSCAPE 3.0 that saves you from having to download these items the next time you find yourself accessing that page. This is good! That means the next time you visit "The COM", you won't have to wait while those silly rocket pictures load from the server. You can set the maximum size for both your disk cache and your memory (RAM) cache in NETSCAPE's options menu under "network preferences". The default settings don't need to be changed. However, it is a good idea to purge out these caches occasionally as a full cache can make the browser slow down.
You are now ready to cruise "The COM" and thousands of places beyond with a confidence of knowledge many have yet to discover. This should be the last point to which you are viewing this page with anything less than NETSCAPE 3.0 . Because now, we are going to take you to Cadet Training, where the first item will be downloading and installing NETSCAPE 3.0 onto your Hard Drive and using it with a winsock file that will allow you to run it with AOL's, GNN's, or whoever's "connect" accounts.
Congratulations Private! If you have spent sufficient time reading the above materials and checking at least half of the links, then you are ready to move on to the next part of the course. Cadet Training is next.
Remember. Every graduate gets a graduation certificate and every 5th graduate gets a free "I made it through the Internet Flight School" T-shirt!
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Flight Classes Ground (The Page You're on Now)
Cadet Training Advanced Pilot Training
Flight Kit (Fly First Class!)
Tips and Tricks on "The COM"
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Flight Classes Ground (The Page You're on Now)
Cadet Training Advanced Pilot Training
Flight Kit (Fly First Class!)
Tips and Tricks on "The COM"
|
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