NON-TECHNICAL PRESENTATION

USES OF INTERNET

The internet has remain the most valuable thing that has happen to this generation and it
will be good if everybody can make optimal use of its resources in our daily endevours.
Below is a presentation on the use of Internet prepared by me; please enjoy it.

INTRODUCTION
The Internet is a “network of networks” that consists of millions of smaller domestic,
academic, business and government networks, which together carry various information
and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer and the interlinked web
pages and other documents of the World Wide Web. The Internet technology has become
so enhanced that it is now the source of important researched and economic information
of companies, governments, institutions or individuals.

WHAT YOU CAN DO ON THE INTERNET

There is hardly any information at any man’s disposal that you will probably not have
access to, when you are connected to the Internet. Some of which you might have to do
so at a fee. The Internet could be put to many uses as stated below;
(A) FINDING INFORMATION
To a new user navigating the Internet effectively may seems to be a daunting task while
some users are so overwhelmed that they never explore the full range of Internet tools
and resources, which could assist them professionally. Finding useful information on the
Internet requires a combination of familiarity with the search tools and resources
available, this entails a grasp of search strategies and language.
Search Tools
(i) Search Engines
A search engines is a programme, which indexes web pages automatically. Since there
are so many stuff out there in cyberspace, if you are trying to find information on a
certain subject and you want to find it fast, you’ll need to use a search engine. Search
engines are Internet tool (sites) that search the internet for the particular thing you are
looking for as fast as possible without wasting time. Among the major search engines and
directories are:
· Altavista : http://www.altavista.com
· Excite : http://www.excite.com
· Google : http://www.google.com
· HotBot : http://www.hotbot.com
· Lycos : http://www.lycos.com
· NorthernLight: http://www.northernlight.com
· Yahoo: http://www.yahoo.com
· Askjeeves : http://www.ask.com
(ii) Meta search Engines
Meta searchers are a special form of search engine, which conduct a search
simultaneously on several search engines. Among the top metasearchers are:
· Dogpile: http://www.dogpile.com
· Metacrawler : http://www.metacrawler.com
· Mamma : http://www.mamma.com

(iii) Directories
Unlike search engines, directories are compiled manually. Information about web sites is
entered manually and each web site included in the directly will be slotted into an
appropriate category such as “travel” “food” or “education”. Yahoo is an example of a
directory.

Search Strategies and Techniques

To search successfully you will need to think about:
(i) What words might be used to describe your topic?
· Synonyms as associated words;
· Words which should be excluded; and
· Words describing related ideas.

(ii) Whether you wish to limit the search:

· By language – e.g. only including English language materials
· By date – e.g. restricting the search to materials produced after 1996.
· By form – e.g. only searching for journals, articles or theses.
· By output – e.g. searching selectively rather than comprehensively.

(iii) What sources to use for searching

· General Sources such as:
* Encyclopaedias
* Newspapers
· Subject-specific sources such as:
* Monographs
* Journals
* Databases

These are several starting points for a search, which you choose depending on your prior
knowledge of the topic for which you are searching. As you continue to search, keep
rethinking your approach to searching. What you find may suggest other ways to describe
the topic or the need to include other sources.

Search Syntax
Different search tool offer different options for refining searches and may use different
search syntax or languages. Some search engines allow you to refine your search by
selecting from a number of natural language options such as “find all words”, “must not
include” or “find any words” while others require you to use either “search math” or
Boolean logic to refine your search. By learning the basic of search math and Boolean
operators you can make your online searching a much more productive experience.
· Some search facilities are case sensitive, while with many it doesn’t matter.
· Many search engines by default ignore common words such as “the” and “in” etc. These
are known as “stopwords”
(a) Search Math
“Search math” uses common mathematical symbols to refine searches:
Use + (plus sign) in front of each term which must appear in your search result. For
example, If you are looking for stirrups for horse riding, entering
+ horse + stirrups
will make sure that the result are all about stirrups for horses – not surgical stirrups, the
stirrup family or recipes for a stirrup cup cocktail.
Use – (minus sign) in front of every term which must not appear in your search result.
For instance, enter
+ stirrups – cup – surgical

Use “ ” (Quotation marks) around words you want to make as a phrase e.g.
“South Africa”
“Stirrup Cup”
“Thabo Mbeki”
Use wildcard * (asterisk) for truncation. E.g. if you want to search for education,
educators, educate etc, enter
Educ*
NB: Not all search engines permit wildcard truncation.

(b) Boolean Logic

Some search engines use the Boolean operators “AND”, “OR” and “NOT” for the
refining of searches. Boolean operators should generally be written in capital letters.
Use AND to require that more than one terms appears in all search result.
e.g. chocolate AND cake
will find pages with both terms.
Use OR if you want your entire search results to include either term (or both). This can be
useful if there are alternate spellings (e.g. “organization” and “organisation” or synonyms
(priest, minister) for terms. To find all pages, which contain the word “priest”, or the
word “minister” (or both), enter
priest OR minister
Use NOT to exclude terms you don’t want to appear in your search results e.g. If you are
looking for information about cabinet ministers rather than minister of the church you
could enter
Minister NOT priest

NB: Some search engines use AND NOT instead of NOT while some allow the use of the
“proximity operator” NEAR e.g. South NEAR Africa.
This will ensure that the terms appear close to one another.

(B) ELECTRONIC MAIL

The Internet is now the cheapest and fastest means of sending and receiving mails. One
does not need a post office box to send and receive mails. This has been one of the
staggering successes of the Internet. Once you open and have unlimited access to your e-
mail account using software such as Microsoft Outlook Express, Yahoo etc you can start
sending e-mail to your friends family or business associates provided you know their e-
mail addresses. Web-based e-mail accounts are accessible from anywhere there is
Internet access, such as at an Internet café. Some of the best examples of web-based
accounts, which are free include:
(i) Hotmail – www.hotmail.com
(ii) Yahoo - www.yahoo.com
(iii) Address - www.address.com
(iv) Amrer - www.amrer.com
(v) Alloymail - www.alloymail.com
(vi) Ivillage – www.ivillage.com
(vii) Freebox - www.freebox.com etc.

13. Another aspect of e-mail that is handy is the facility to send attachment with them.
These can range from a photograph to a different format of files alongside with a video
clip. As long as you have it on your computer and the recipient has the software to open
it.

(C) THE WORLD WIDE WEB

Many people use the term Internet and www (or just the webs) interchangeably, the two
terms are not synonymous. The www is a huge set of interlinked documents, images and
other resources linked by hyperlinks and URLs.

These hyperlinks & ULS allow the web-servers and other machines that store originals
and cached copies of those resources to deliver them as required using HTTP (Hyper
Text Transfer Protocol); which is one of the communication protocols used on the
internet. Web browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox are used to access web
pages and allow users to navigate from one to another through hyper links. Web
documents include photographs, graphics, sounds, text video, multimedia and interactive
contents such as games, office application and scientific demonstrations.

(D) REMOTE ACCESS

The Internet allows computer users to connect to other computers and information stores
easily, wherever they may be across the world. e.g. an office worker away from his desk,
perhaps the other side of the world on a business trip or a holiday, can open a remote
desktop session into their normal office PC using a secure Virtual Private Network
(VPN) connection via the Internet. This gives the worker complete access to applications,
while away from the office

(E) COLLABORATION
The low cost and nearly instantaneous sharing of ideas, knowledge and skills has made
collaborative work dramatically easier. Not only can a group cheaply communicate and
test, but the wide reach of the Internet allows such groups to easily form in the first place.
Internet collaboration technology enables business and project teams to share documents,
calendars and other information. Such collaboration occurs in a side variety of areas
including scientific research, software development, conference planning, political
activation and creative writing.

(F) FILE SHARING

A computer file can be e-mailed to customers, colleagues and friends as an attachment.
This simple feature of the Internet, over a world-wide basis, is changing the basis for the
production, sale and distribution of anything that can be reduce to a computer file for
transmission. These include all manner of point publications, software products, news,
music, film, videos, photography, graphics and other arts.

(G) STREAMING MEDIA

The Internet has made if possible for broadcasters to transmit their live audio and video
streams e.g. the BBC. This technology allows many existing Radio & Television
broadcasters to provide Internet “feeds” of their programmes. This means that an
Internet-connected device, such as a computer or something more specific can be used to
access on-line media in much the same way as was previously possible only with a
television & radio receiver.

(H) VOICE TELEPHONY

VoIP stands for Voice over IP, where IP refers to the Internet Protocol that underlies all
Internet communication. This phenomenon began as an optional 2-way voice extension
around the year 2000. In recent years, many VoIP systems have become as easy to use
and as convenient as a normal telephone: The benefit is that, VoIP can be free or cost
much less than a normal telephone call especially over long distances (international calls)
and for those always on Internet connections such as cable or ADSL. VoIP is maturing
into a viable alternative to traditional telephones. Interoperability between different
providers has improved and the ability to call or receive a call from a traditional
telephone is available. Simple inexpensive VoIP modems are now available that
eliminate the need for a PC.

(I) LEISURE/ENTERTAINMENT
The Internet has been a major source of leisure even before the invention of world-wide
Web. Today, many Internet forums have section devoted games and funny videos; short
cartoons in the form of flash movies are also popular.

(J) MARKETING
The Internet has also become a large market for companies some of the biggest
companies today have grown by taking advantage of the efficient nature of low-cost
advertising and commerce through the Internet, which is also known as e-commerce. It is
the fastest way of spreading information to a vast amount of people simultaneously. The
Internet has also revolutionaries shopping – e.g. person can order a CD online and receive
it in the mail within a couple of days or download it directly in some cases. It has also
greatly facilitated personalized marketing which allows a company to market a product to
a specific person or a specific group of people than any other advertising medium.

(K) JOB OPPORTUNITIES

On the Internet employees and job seekers do meet, if an agreement is reached, job
seekers and employers become better for it.

(L) GETTING CONTACT/FRIENDS

The Internet is a cheap source of making friends on contacts. Logging onto an
appropriate site, you can choose a business partner, a pen-pal o even a wife or husband. It
is a market place for whatever you need to sell or buy

CONCLUSION
The Internet is allowing greater flexibility in the way works are being done worldwide,
especially with the spread of unmetered high-speed connections and Web Applications. It
can now be accessed virtually everywhere by numerous means. Some