Using the Internet for Research

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Using the Internet for Research

• David Turton
• Conestoga College
• Institute of Technology Advanced Learning
• http//www.conestogac.on.ca/dturton
• Doon 1B43 x3610

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A Grain of Salt

• No-one owns or controls Internet content
• this is a good thing
• no censorship
• free sharing of ideas
• support for special interest groups
• this is a bad thing
• no vetting/guarantee of content
• postings are often temporary
• source bias vendor focus

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Internet Domains

• Other suffixes
• .ca .uk country-specific
• .com commercial
• .edu post-secondary education
• .gov US government
• .mil US military
• .org non-profit/professional
• organisation
• .net network related
• .name peoples names
• .aero aerospace

• www.conestogac.on.ca
• www specific host or server, assigned by domain
  owner
• dragon.conestogac.on.ca
• info.conestogac.on.ca
• cs23.conestogac.on.ca
• Cswin2k1.cpcpa.conestogac.on.ca
• conestogac.on.ca the root of the domain
• on.ca domain owner is only in Ontario Canada

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Mailing Lists

• Any mail sent to a mailing list is sent to every
  e-mail address on the list
• you (un)subscribe by mail to MAJORDOMO, LISTSERV
  or MAILSERV
• If you're not on the list, you've missed all info
  to that point
• discussion history is not always available.

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Mail Lists - finding

• Closed mail lists are only known to members of a
  group
• Eg subscribers of EWeek magazine
• Others can be found at
• http//www.tile.net
• Or, you could go through a search engine looking
  for
• mailing lists OR email lists OR

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www.tile.net - mail lists
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News Groups or Usenet Newsnow known as "blogs"

• created by and for a special interest group
• more like a bulletin board
• postings have more permanence than mail
• So you can see old discussions (threads)
• usually, theres a purge period
• a FAQ is usually available
• FAQ Frequently Asked Questions
• past discussions, culture, targets of the group,
  etc.
• moderated or not moderated
• Moderated someone screens each posting before
  its added to the list

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Naming News Groups

• prefix defined the major news group
• rec arts recreation
• soc culture social issues
• sci science engineering
• comp computers computing
• news network news
• alt alternative lifestyles (aka misc)
• less adherence now to old standards
• rest of name refines the topic

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Starting Outlook's News Readermost news groups
today use web pages, called "blogs"
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Search Engines/Sites

• Yahoo.com
• Altavista.com
• Altavista.ca
• Dogpile.com
• msn.com
• Lycos.com
• Hotbot.com
• Google.ca
• Webring.com
• Searchenginewatch.com

• Each has its strengths weaknesses
• yahoo! is based on submissions, not web crawls
• webring member sites link to each other
• Searchenginewatch compares search engines

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Search Essentials

• Example
• American Idol
• gets all sites with either word
• All sites that have American
• All site that have Idol
• American Idol
• gets all sites with the words together
• frequently, have to request advanced search

• Search engines store key words theyve gleaned
  from web pages
• Find pages by specifying words or phrases of
  interest
• there are techniques to refine searches
• Case
• All lower case
• Finds pages w/ any case
• If you capitalise
• Only exact matches

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Boolean LogicAdvanced Keyword Searching

• BOOLEAN LOGIC
• Combine terms using logical operators such as
• requires exact phase as between quotes
• AND or requires all terms to appear
• OR or requires either term to appear
• NOT or ! excludes articles with the following
  term
• NEAR or requires terms to be within 10-25 words
• ( ) used to sequence and group operators
• Capitals are required for logical operators
• http//searchenginewatch.com/facts/boolean.html

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Look for firewalls or VPN devices (ie not
concept papers)
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Google.ca advanced search keywords

• filetypedoc
• Return only Word documents
• -filetypepdf
• Return all files except Adobe pdf's
• If you don't have the application
• Provides HTML or text links
• sitemicrosoft
• Only return pages from the Microsoft.com domain
• define byte-code
• Find a definition for the following term
• moviejohnny depp
• If you set "Local" on the Google site, it'll show
  movies local to you first
• linkwww.conestogac.on.ca
• List all pages with a link to the given URL

• inurlpartition
• Word "partition" in the URL of a page
• allinurl
• Multiple words in URL, any order
• intitle"index of"
• Phrase "index of" in heading on page
• 4520000000000000..4520999999999999
• Pages w/ "visa" and a pattern in the given range
  (Visa numbers)
• so much commentary, can't find the turkeys
• "Microsoft Windows XP Pro" 94FBR
• "94FBR" was in several XP serial numbers

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Find all Adobe .pdf files from the Microsoft.com
domain that talk about "ics"
For news about or instances local to you
Don't have the app? No problem
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Data Compression http//www.winzip.com,
http//www.win-rar.org

• Sites compress files to save transfer time
• File-names end with .zip, .gz or .rar
• ported to most all platforms
• winzip is most popular Windows utility (was
  pkzip)
• Linux gzip
• winrar can do both .zip and .rar files
• .zip support built into XP's file system
• Look like compressed folders
• Alternative .rar
• Compression deviant that's becoming popular
• More efficient algorithm than .zip

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Created a 2,162KB file from 3,832KB of source
data reducing it by 44
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Self-Extractorsnot everyone has a .zip utility

• Can create a self-extracting executable
• Take the uncompress utility program
• Append the zip file as utilitys data
• Make the package executable
• User executes the self-extracting file
• Downloads the .exe file
• Executes it
• Pop-up allows them to designate where to
  uncompress to
• Cannot select which files/folders, however

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Create self-extractor from .zip file
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Executing self-extractor (uncompressing .zip
data) Browse to, or type the folder where youd
like the files uncompressed to. Folders in .zip
file will be created as sub-folders.
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• XP
• Built-in .zip support
• Zipped files look like folders
• Can "open" them to view/copy files

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• XP
• Can create compressed .zip "folder" (actually a
  file)
• Can add files to it later