Hints for using the internet

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Hijos del Altísimo

(Children of the Most High)

Hints for using the Internet

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If you are an experimented internet user, this page will not contain anything new for you. But if you are just beginning to explore, you can find useful hints about how to:
- find faster the information you are looking for
- save and use in your computer information and software from the internet
- protect your computer from viruses.
In order to follow the instructions below, you need to have at least some basic knowledge about the use of the operating system "Windows". For the users of other operating systems, some of these hints will not apply exactly.

There are several "search engines" on the internet which allow to search information in the internet by using the keywords you choose. You enter a search engine in the same way you enter any web page: clicking the corresponding link from another page, or typing its address in the address line of your browser.
In continuation we will describe the basic functions which are almost the same for all search engines:
- Keywords
In the search line (blank line where you can enter text) you can insert the keywords you want to search for. The search engine will return the addresses of all the web pages which contain these keywords. If you insert for example the word "Christian", you will see all pages which contain this word. You can imagine that there will be thousands of pages! Therefore you need to specify more exactly the subject you are searching for.
- Combination of several keywords
Let's assume you want to find information about Christian education of children. So you could search for all pages which contain the words "Christian", "education", and "children". In order to be even more specific and to have a greater chance of finding Bible-based pages, you could also include the word "Bible" in your search. So you would type the following list of keywords:
+Christian +education +children +Bible
The plus signs (+) tell the search engine to dispplay only pages which contain all four keywords. (It is especially important not to forget the plus sign before the first word!) If you do not use the plus sign, the engine will return all pages which contain "Christian" or "education" or "children" or "Bible". This does not make much sense, because you will get all pages which have something to do with Christianity, plus all pages about any type of education, plus all pages related to children, plus all pages mentioning the Bible in any context. Therefore you should combine the words with the plus sign.
(Some search engines use the word AND instead of the plus sign.)
- Excluding keywords
You can exclude certain words from the search by preceding them with a minus sign (-). For example, if you are sure that you do not want to see any page related to school, you can modify your list this way:
+Christian +education +children +Bible -school
(Some search engines use the word NOT instead of the minus sign.)
- Literal expressions
Search engines normally search a keyword in all its grammatical forms. If you have, for example, the word "Christian" in your list, the search engine will also search for "Christians", and possibly even for "christianize", "Christianity", etc. If you want the search engine to find only the word as you typed it, or an expression of several consecutive words, you can put the expression in quotation marks:
+"Christian education" +children +Bible
This search will not return pages which contain the words "Christian" and "education" separately, but only those which contain the two words together.
- Language selection
Most search engines contain a pulldown list where you can select the language of the pages. By default, pages in all languages are searched for. Especially if you are searching for non-English pages, the search time will be considerably shorter if you specify first the language in which you want to search pages.
- Start the search
Once you entered your keywords, click on the button which says "Search", "Go!", or similar. After some time you will see the first ten or twenty search results. If there are more results, you can click on the corresponding link for displaying page 2, 3, etc. of results.
See below for a convenient way of examining the pages found:

When you click on a link with the right hand button of your mouse, a context menu with different options will appear. One of them is "Open in new window". When you select this option, a new browser window will open which shows the new page, while the first window remains open and can be selected quickly by clicking its icon on the taskbar (at the bottom of the screen).
You can also change the size of the windows so several windows will be visible at the same time.
This is very useful, for example if you did a search with a search engine and you want to examine the contents of the pages found, without loosing the list of results; or if a page contains several links and you want to see them one by one, without having to load again and again the original page.
Try with this link: Home Page
If you did it right, you should see now a second browser window which shows the home page of "Hijos del Altisimo", without closing this current window.

You might find it useful saving web pages on your own computer, for example:
- If you frequently use the information on certain pages and want to see them faster, without having to load them every time from the internet.
- If you do not have access to the Internet on your own computer, you can transfer web pages on diskettes from another computer (for example a public internet cabin). In Windows 98, you can view the page by simply double-clicking the file name (*.HTM), Internet Explorer will open and show the page as if you were connected to the Internet.

1. On the browser's menu bar, click on "File".
2. On the appearing pull-down menu, select "Save as".
3. A dialog box will appear where you can select the folder in which you want to save the page. You can also change the file name if you want. (The diskette has normally the drive letter "A:", and the hard disk has normally the drive letter "C:".)
Some versions of "Internet Explorer" let you choose between different file types. "Web page (HTML only)" will save only the text. "Web page, complete" will save also all the graphics and images contained in the page. (In this case, the graphics will be saved in a new subfolder which has the same name as the .htm file.)
Try with this page! - If you did it right, you should now have the file "netPautasE.htm" on your hard disk or diskette.

Even if the original web pages and software are virus free, you might get them infected for different reasons:
- The author might have them uploaded from an infected computer.
- They might have been copied inside an infected computer.
- They might have been sent by e-mail from or to an infected computer.
- The computer where you download them might be infected.
So if you download information for use in your own computer, take some security measures against viruses:
- Scan all the downloaded files with an up-to-date antivirus program before opening resp. executing them. A virus cannot be activated by only copying a file, but it will be activated when the file is opened.
- Do not use illegal copies of commercial programs. There is a high risk for illegal copies to contain viruses.
- Update your antivirus software frequently. New viruses are created every day, so an antivirus older than three months is no longer safe because it will no longer detect the latest viruses.
- Some producers of antivirus software offer free (time-limited) trial versions or online scans on their web sites. So if you need to scan your computer only once, you can do it with a trial version without any need to buy the program.

- How to save a web page (or another resource offered in internet) without having to display it first:

It is possible to save a web page from a link, without having to load it into the browser window:
(The same applies to other resources offered from a link for download: Software, graphics, music files, etc.)
1. Click with the right hand mouse button on the link text.
2. In the appearing context menu, choose "Save Link" resp. "Save Target".
3. A dialog box will appear in which you can choose the folder where to save the file.

Try with this link: Test Page
If you did it right, you should now have on your hard disk or diskette the file "test.htm". (When you view this file in the browser, the graphics will appear as little empty boxes with an x in them, because you saved only the text.)

1. Click on the image you want to save with the right hand mouse button.
2. In the appearing context menu, select "Save Image".
3. A dialog box will appear where you can select the folder where you want to save the image file.

The graphics and images are normally in GIF or JPEG/JPG format (pay attention to the file name extension). These files can be opened and printed with most graphics editors, for example "Imaging" which is included in Windows.
Try with this image:

If you did it right, you should now have the file "estrella.gif" on your hard disk or diskette. Open it with a graphics editor to verify. - If you saved it in the same folder as "test.htm", this image should now appear in the page when you view it again in your browser.
An important detail:
Many web pages have their graphics stored in a different folder. For example, most pages from "Hijos del Altisimo" have their graphics stored in a subfolder named "Pic". In order to view these pages correctly after saving them, you would have to reconstruct the same folder structure; this means creating a subfolder, naming it "Pic" and saving the graphics there.

Some web pages have links indicating that there is a program or other software for download. For most of these links you can apply the same procedure as for saving a web page without displaying it.
You can also enter the link directly (click on it with the left mouse button). Some browsers will then display two options: "Open from location" or "Save to disk". For safety reasons, choose ALWAYS "Save to disk". (See Beware of viruses!)

Some of the downloaded programs come in EXE format (executable). Normally these are installation programs. So (if you work under Windows), you can just double-click on the file name. The program will install itself automatically while you follow the instructions displayed on screen.

There are a few programs which do not need any installation because they consist of one single file; when you execute it, the program executes directly.

Other programs come in ZIP format (compressed archive). In order to install them, you need an uncompressing utility. One of them which is offered for free is PowerArchiver (http://www.powerarchiver.com). Also the following page offers such programs: http://www.davecentral.com/12004.html
Then you have to install the program manually:
1. Open the ZIP file from the uncompression program. A list of the compressed files contained in it will appear.
2. Select "Extract". - If you have to choose between the entire archive or individual files, choose the complete archive.
3. A dialog box will appear where you can select the folder where the files will be copied. (It is strongly recommended to create a new folder for every program you install.)
4. After copying resp. uncompressing the files, open the folder where these files are located. Look first for text files which contain information about the use of the program, and read them. (These files normally have names like README.TXT or README.DOC. You can also look for Help Files with the extension .HLP). Most important, find out which file is the executable that starts the program. (Normally this is an .EXE file, in some cases a .BAT file.)
5. If you are using Windows: Create a shortcut to that executable and copy the shortcut to the desktop or to the Start menu.

Some programs come also in "self-extracting" format. This is an intermediate between the two described above: they are compressed archives like the .ZIP files, but you do not need an uncompression utility for opening them. They have the extension .EXE. When you execute them (double click on the file name), a dialog box will appear where you are asked to select a folder where the files are to be extracted. Then you proceed in the same way as for ZIP files, starting at Step 3.