The basic procedures are the same regardless of which navigator, computer platform, or operating system you use. The Instructional Computing Lab uses the MICROSOFT Internet Explorer (IE) on PC machines running Microsoft Windows.

While different computers and different operating systems store information in different ways, they all share a few basic features. Information is stored in files, and these files are arranged in a directory tree structure (analogous to papers inside of files inside of file drawers, but with a virtually infinite number of "branches" available). Anything that was prepared electronically and resides in a computer file can be placed on the internet. Anything that was prepared on paper, cd-rom, or even video can also be translated into a computer file. Once it exists as a file, all someone else needs to do to access it is be given a physical connection to your computer, permission to access the file, and a unique file location and name. We need not concern ourselves with the technical details involved in making the physical connection; suffice it to say that nearly all academic computers and many businesses and home pc's are already linked. Each computer has a unique address, and the file location and name can be given in a standard way. To sort all of this out, each file has a unique address, called a Uniform Resource Locator or URL. These have the form of format://computer.institution.domain/directory/subdirectory/filename.extension , where format tells what kind of network technology needs to be used when accessing it (usually "http"), the domain is usually .edu for educational institutions, .gov for government institutions, .com for commercial institutions, etc. The filename extension often tells what type of format the file is written in.

The "world-wide" nature of the internet is obvious, but the "web" nature needs some explaining. Each file on the internet can be accessed through many, many different routes, even though it has a unique name. The whole name can be specified, or the file name can be linked to information in another file. For example, I can have a file that explains what is going on in Astronomy at SUNYSB and inside of it embed links to the Astronomy departments files. There is a site for the university as a whole that also links the Astronomy department. It's like a gigantic spider web in which there are many paths from point a to point b. You don't always take the best route, and you can't always get back to where you started from, but you can always bookmark where you are at currently and therefore find your way back easily.

The IE browser has several windows and menus that you need to become familiar with. Along the top is a banner that tells you the title of the document that you are viewing in the main window. Below that, there are several "pull down" menus: File, Edit, View, Go, Bookmarks, Options, Directory, Window, and Help. Below that, there are "shortcut" buttons for several options that are frequently used but hard to find in the pull-down mennus. Below that, there might be a window showing you your current location in the world-wide web and maybe another row of shortcut buttons; it depends on how you have the "options" set up. You will find scroll bars on the right and sometimes on the bottom if the information displayed in the main window doesn't fit. You can move the mouse the scroll bar and click in one of several ways to read the information that is currently off your screen. You can often use the "page up" and "page down" keys for the same purpose. Unlike many computer applications, you only have to click once to activate a link in IE. To view a file, you have several options:

1. you can explicitly type its URL into the "Location" window,
2. you can hit the "open" button and type in the URL into the "pop up" window,
3. you can click on the "File" pull down menu and click again on "Open File",
4. you can click on a link (these usually appear as underlined text or highlighted borders around pictures; the color changes depending on whether you've viewed that file before) to the file,
5. you can pull down the "Go" menu and click on a file name that you're read before,
6. you can click on the "Back" and "Forward" buttons to go back and forth through the last several files you've viewed.

There are a lot of services that make using the internet easier. These are analogous to library card catalogs. Under the "Directory" pull down menu, there is an option called "Internet Search". If you click on it, you will be connected to one of these, somewhat randomly selected. It might not be the best one to use, but you will be given a list of several dozen others to chose from. My favorites are Yahoo and Alta Vista, but they all have their strengths and weaknesses. Some of them are purely heirarchical, in that you might have to first click on science, then astronomy, then planets, then mars, then life. Others give you only a window, in which you might enter "mars life" or mars+life (the format differs, but these are the two most common ways to set up a search) and then hit return or click on the "search" button. Many "search engines" are a combination of heirarchical and window-driven structures. Some, like Yahoo, give a list of site names with links, others take you directly to the sites. There is now so much stuff available that you have to be quite creative with your search criteria to keep from finding too much. For example, try bringing up the Internet Search window and, using whichever search engine it gives you, type your name (e.g. Fred Walter). After you get a million possible links displayed, hit the "Back" button to try it again, but this time type your name as, e.g. "Fred Walter" or Fred+Walter or Walter Fred. You will get different results each time, unless your name is Engelbert Humperdink. I will take some of the pain out of this procedure by steering you to some of the sites that already contain the information you are looking for. Feel free to look around and see what's available, though.

Explore the Following Sites:

1. The HOME PAGE for this course: http://sbast3.ess.sunysb.edu/fwalter/AST101/ast101.html
   Check out all the sections. Follow the link to my SUNY home page. Snooping around there for a few minutes will give you a pretty good idea of the sorts of basic things that you can include rather easily in a web site.

2. The SUNY Astronomy Program HOME PAGE: Astronomy Program
   Here you can find links to other courses, faculty research, and lots of astronomical sites.

3. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific: http://www.aspsky.org/
   While it started as a collection of amature astronomers fighting the lights of San Francisco, the ASP has grown into an international organization of professional and amature astronomers, dedicated to public education in astronomy. It therefore has an excellent collection of teaching resources, an extensive catalog, and a good list of links to other sites. Locate the icons on the home page that will take you to each of these 3 areas. Under "Teacher's Newsletter", you will be given an opportunity to subscribe (free) and then you can view 36 newsletters on the screen. You might wish to return to this site later and use their list of links as a starting point to explore other sites.

4. The Planetary Society: http://www.planetary.org/
   This organization is "dedicated to the exploration of the Solar system and the search for extraterrestrial life". It is a highly regarded group (i.e. not a bunch of whackos) that publishes a magazine and funnels contributions to what it considers to be worthy causes (e.g. the SETI institute). You should look at the list of "hot topics".

5. The Space Telescope Science Institute: http://www.stsci.edu/
   This is a great source of the latest pictures and press releases from the Hubble Space Telescope.

6. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration: http://www.nasa.gov/
   NASA has "billions and billions" of internet sites. You can explore all night if you want. Many of them are pretty mundane, though. You can get anywhere in the NASA domain (eventually) by starting with the main home page. Look at the "Space Science" pages. The Office of Space Sciences has been reorganized recently. One of the programs is now called the "Search for Origins". Read the material describing the NASA/Origins program.
   

7. The SETI Institute: http://www.seti-inst.edu/

8. The ASTROBIOLOGY WEB SITE: http://www.reston.com/astro/bio.web.html
   OR http://www2.astrobiology.com/astro/ This is a phenomenal collection of links, arranged heirarchically and with a search engine, on all topics relating to the astronomical search for life.

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   Once you have examined these sites, you might start in on some of the sites in the big list Links to some reputable astronomical Sites.

   This guide was originally written by Prof. James E. Neff (College of Charleston), and has been modified for this course.