Shopping Online

1
Shopping On-line

• Shopping and Security

2
Interactive Shopping

• How popular is on-line shopping?
• 10 million US Households shopped on-line last
  year
• More than 10 billion was spent in on-line stores
  last year

3
Rules for Safe Shopping

• Research the company before buying
• Locate a mailing address and a phone number
  within the site
• Has the Better Business Bureau approved?
• BBB Seal
• Been in business for 1 year
• Allows BBB to mediate arbitration
• Truthful advertising on its site

4
Secure shopping sites

• https//
• S for secure
• SSL guards info in transit
• Secure Socket Layer is an encryption protocol
• The Locked Padlock
• A verification posted by your browser stating the
  site is secure and using encryption at the time
  you visit it.

5
Payment Options

• Which payment method is the most secure?
• Why?
• How risky is it?
• How much are you required to pay if you are
  ripped off?

6
Credit cards all the way!

• Most on-line shopping complaints involve checks
  and money orders
• Your card numbers are encrypted during transit
• Because credit card companies offer ample on-line
  protection
• Allow consumer rights
• Offer ample protection and help with resolution
• Bill you 50 or less for loss or theft on-line!
• Might as well tip the waiter, its just as risky

7
Browsers

• Tips Tricks

8
Your Doorway to the Web

• Browsers are easy programs to use with few
  instructions
• Most offer several search options and techniques
• Most understand common query forms and syntax
• On-line services including E-mail and site
  hosting are available
• Examples Netscape MSIE

9
Browsing versus Searching

• Browsers offer tricks to get you started looking
  in the right direction
• Browsers can contain search engines
• When you post a query to a browser, it sends the
  query to the search engines it uses to surf the
  web

10
Your browser and You!

• Your browser offers tips and tricks to help you
• spend less time on-line
• Conduct more efficient searches
• Track your whereabouts in cyberspace
• Search documents for exact words or phrases
• Take advantage of your first web resource and
  make your browser work for you

11
Browser Tips

• Allow you to start from a default page or your
  desired home page
• Allow you to search results for search terms with
  FIND
• Offer History lists to help you track and
  backtrack your on-line adventures
• Offer bookmarks for direct links to your favorite
  sites

12
Browser Shortcuts

• Prompt the Find command
• Jump to the end of a web page
• Jump to the beginning of a page
• Open a new browser window
• Close the current window

• CTRL F
• CTRL End
• CTRL Home
• CTRL N
• CTRL W

13
Browser Shortcuts

• Display Bookmarks
• Add the current page to Bookmarks
• View History
• Quit and Close

• CTRL B
• CTRL D
• CTRL H
• CTRL Q

14
Search Tools

• Engines, Subject Trees and Clearinghouses

15
The Basic Searching Tools

• Search Engines
• Directories or Subject Trees
• Clearinghouses
• Specialized and Meta Search Engines

16
Directories and Subject Trees

• Hierarchically organized into categories and
  sub-categories by topics
• Categories and topics are chosen by humans
• Web documents included for each topic are also
  chosen by humans
• Organized and easy

17
Clearinghouses

• A collection of sites or documents about a timely
  or specific topic
• When they exist, they often have much of the
  research done for you.
• The information is collected and organized often
  by researchers or specialist
• The idea is to create a collection of timely,
  pertinent documents related to a narrow topic or
  specialty.

18
General Search Engines

• Indexes a large collection of pages that users
  retrieve by entering keyword queries
• Use a spider-like program that peruses the web
  and updates to newer versions and topics
  available regularly
• Larger than directories
• No topical restrictions forced by predetermined
  categories

19
Specialized Search Engines

• Specialize in a topic or subject
• Usually updated more frequently than
  clearinghouses
• Usually cover a broader scope of related topics
  with detailed sub-topics
• More breadth than a clearinghouse
• May exist for search queries you continually
  perform

20
Meta Search Engines

• Sends your query to several different search
  engines
• Returns a number of top hits given from each
  engine
• Usually omits repeat or duplicate hits
• Helps to return a hit list filled with
  worthwhile sites

21
Meta Engines

• Returns hits in an order determined by merge
  and rank
• Saves time and reduces user effort
• Performs better with well-constructed search
  queries
• The best tool to find Exactly what Im looking
  for!

22
Query Techniques

• Word Choice, Syntax,
• The Question and Answer Combination

23
The Fuzzy Query

• Requires only plain English!
• Does not have grammar requirements!
• Good as open-ended phrases
• Examples
• who signed the bill of rights
• major music bands 2000

24
Successive Query Refinement

• The first step in writing a query is
• Write it in only plain English!
• But even BEFORE you do that
• Think about your topic
• What organizations might post material on this
  topic?
• What groups might be discussing this topic?

25
Refinement and Keywords

• Jot down a few keywords
• Keywords are included or omitted from a search by
  using
• keyword (No spacing!)
• -keyword
• Try exact phrase matching
• Can you group several keywords to make a key
  phrase?
• Surround key or search phrases with quotations
  so the search tool knows which word sequence it
  needs to match

26
Caution!

• Posting single-word queries will usually return
  an awful lot of hits
• Grammar can complicate versus clarify your
  request
• Query syntax refers to the use of alphabet
  symbols in query strings
• Using symbols like , -, and

27
Ready for more?

• Is it Baseball or baseball?
• Did you know if you type every alpha character in
  lower case you will get more hits than by using
  proper capitalization?
• This is called case insensitive and returns
  both formal and informal expressions of a word.

28
Ready for it all

• Adding an asterisk to the end of a search word
  will return hits with the original word, varied
  tenses of the original word, and original and
  varied tenses of a word that is part of a key
  phrase!
• Combinations of all of these tricks are possible
  and can help you find what you wantFAST!
• play ball is your shot at a home run!

29
Beware of Boolean

• This default search type inserts words between
  the terms you enter in a search query.
• For example, ellis island is ready by a computer
  as ellis and island
• Enter your own quotes and ellis island means
  ellis island

30
Is it and or or? Is it or or not?

• Boolean terms are logical operators
• They manipulate combinations of required and
  prohibited keywords
• Cat and dog will return documents containing the
  terms cat and dog.
• Cat or dog will return documents containing
  either cat or dog, not both.
• Cat and not dog will return documents that
  contain the word cat and do not contain the word
  dog.

31
Three Query Types

• The Voyager
• An open-ended question. Exploratory and surface
  in nature. Maybe it is a new topic for you.
• The Deep Thought
• An open-ended, focused question, Know you want to
  know the details, or both sides of opinions
  regarding a particular topic.
• The Joe Friday
• A question that begs a simple, straight-forward
  answer
• The no-nonsense line drive

32
The Right Combo
33
It cant be that simple

• For a better search
• Get to know several search tools
• Try to follow patterns in your results to
  understand how the information is collected
• Check search options in tools
• Just below the search box!
• Take time to think and strategize!

34
Search and Query Examples
35
Yahoo The Directory Example

• Go to yahoo
• Go to a category---entertainment
• Go to a sub-category---music
• Click and go to a site of your choice!
• This is an example of directory searching.

36
A Clearinghouse Example

• Go to www.clearinghouse.net
• A clearinghouse of clearinghouses
• Click on a topic until you find a list of
  documents or sites
• Go to Netsurfer Digest (all sorts of topics)
• http//www.netsurf.com/nsd/search.html
• Locate some new sites for a topic of personal
  interest

37
A Search Engine Example

• Go to http//www.google.com
• Type in the topic that was the goal of your
  clearinghouse search
• Search using another keyword for the topic you
  just tried
• Go to http//www.askjeeves.com
• Type in your topic as a question and use just
  plain English!
• Compare your results

38
A Specialized Engine Example

• To find specialized search engines
• Start with a search engine that specializes in
  locating these sites
• Go to http//invisibleweb.com
• Enter several topics to see if specialized sites
  exist for them
• Some to try shareware, peer-to-peer, freeware

39
A Little Meta Search

• Go to http//www.metacrawler.com
• Use the search query
• Arizona cities populations to try to find a
  ranked list of Arizonas 10 largest cities.
• Can you find such a document?
• Go to http//www.infind.com
• Perform the same search
• Compare your results

40
The Fuzzy Query Example

• Write a fuzzy query.
• Think about your hobbies and interests.
• music bands of the nineties
• Try it in several search engines
• AskJeeves and AskJeeves meta search engine
• AltaVista directory and search engine
• Compare your results

41
An Exercise in Syntax

• Think of a topic in which you are interested
• Type it as a fuzzy query
• Type is as a list of keywords
• Type it as a key phrase
• Add, omit and group several combinations
• Which query gave the best results in the fewest
  hits?
• Try it using another search tool