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Everything You Wanted to Know About the Internet: Useful Sites
Mousercise Practice using a mouse with the Central Kansas Library System at: www.ckls.org/~crippel/computerlab/tutorials/mouse/page1.html
This is a
long address, but well worth looking at. Not only will this lead you step-by-step through using a computer mouse, but it will also require you to
use the scroll bar on the right-hand side of the computer screen and introduce you to checkboxes. These skills will help you on websites that
require you to fill in online forms (such as signing-up for e-mail or replying to questionnaires).
Learn How to Find Information on the Internet, courtesy of the University of
California at Berkeley. Available at www.lib.berkeley.edu/teachinglib/guides/internet/findinfo.html. Here you
will find a brief explanation of the Internet itself, and suggestions on how
to evaluate websites for reliable information. There is also a comparison
of popular search engines.
Find Lists of Internet Sites Arranged by Topic on the Minuteman Library
Network's home page, www.mln.lib.ma.us/quickfind. For websites recommended
by Framingham Public Library staff, check out our other resource
lists.
Use Subscription Databases for Free on the Minuteman home page, www.mln.lib.ma.us.
Dozens of databases--including
several health, business, and magazine indexes and an index to the Boston
Globe--have been chosen and paid for by regional Massachusetts
library systems for the quality of information they provide.
If you're not sure, ask us via our
online Ask A Librarian service, or by
telephoning the library at 508-532-5570, ext. 4361. The librarians at the Framingham
Public Library will be happy to help you find an Internet site that suits
your needs, or suggest an alternative if the Internet doesn't answer your
question.
Did You Know?
You can often tell where a website comes from by the suffix on the end of
the address. These suffixes are known as domain name suffixes, and there
are several in common use:
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.com is a site usually owned or sponsored by a commercial entity, such as a
business or Internet service provider. Examples: www.aol.com and www.walmart.com. If an individual's web site is hosted by an Internet
service provider, it will often have .com in the address, even if the
individual's web site is not used for business.
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.org is usually, but not always, used by organizations.
www.greenpeace.org
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.edu is reserved for schools and colleges. www.umass.edu
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.gov is reserved for U.S. government offices. www.epa.gov
There are many more suffixes out there, and a complete list is available at
www.computeruser.com/resources/dictionary/noframes/nf.domains.html .
Just for fun, compare the following sites: www.framingham.edu,
www.framingham.k12.ma.us,
www.framinghamma.gov, and www.framingham.com
There is a difference between email addresses and website addresses.
Email addresses follow the format yourname@domain.suffix. For example, the
email address of the Boston Globe's Ombudsman, Christine Chinlund, is ombud@globe.com. "Ombud" is the name
she goes by, "Globe" is the domain that
the email is sent to, and ".com" is the suffix that labels the Globe as a
commercially-owned website. You can't "look at" an email address on the
Internet, as you can with a website address, but you can send mail to it by
using an email program. Note that an email address does not have "http://www." in front of it.
Websites change!
Please email us if you have
difficulty accessing a site on this list. We'll try to identify and
correct the problem.
Produced by the Reference Department, August 2000.
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