Getting Caught in the Web

Caught in the Web: Amazing text about the WWW from the 1990s… Times have changed since those years…

Lost in cyberspace? Caught in the Web? Here’s a tool that can help you find your way.

You’ve discovered the Internet, but you feel lost in cyberspace. So many choices. What’s a budding cybernaut to do? Try the World Wide Web – usually just called the Web, a growing region of the Internet that connects the far-flung points in cyberspace. Just like the Internet, however, the Web is designed to work with graphics and well-designed text. Indeed, when you enter the Web, you feel as though you are in the middle of a magazine or an art exhibition. Except that you can interact with it. How does it work?

Just as each person on the Internet has an address, so does each “each”. When you type in a site address, your modem transports you to a “home page”, the welcome mat of a Web site.

The home page looks like a page in an illustrated book, and it usually offers a list of features. Key words and images on the home page are high-lighted in color type (called hypertext). By clicking on a hypertext word or image, you’re transported to a new page in the site (or to another site altogether), which provides more information about the topic that that word or image describes.

For example, let’s say you enter the address for Pathfinder, the Web site of Time Warner. You will be transported to Pathfinder’s home page, which offers a menu box containing symbols (or icons) for all the magazines the company has launched on the Web. Click on the People Weekly icon, and you go from the Pathfinder home page to that of People. Scrolling through the table of contents, you see on it and your screen displays the magazine’s latest update on the athlete’s murder trial. Within the article, other names may be highlighted. If you click on them, you will be transported to articles covering those personalities, or you may be transported to another site altogether, such a computer bulletin board devoted to discussing the trial.

Where you go on the Web depends entirely on what you click on. Here is a list of what you’ll need for traveling in the Web.

A Speedy Modem: Since it can take a while for big graphics to make their way across phone lines, you’re best off with a modem that can process quickly; get a modem that runs at 14/4 kbps or higher.

A SLIP or PPP Account: To access the Web, you need a special, turbo-powered type of Internet account; these cost more than regular accounts (usually about $10-$15 more per month). Tell your Internet provider that you’d like add SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) or PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol) to your account.

A Browser: This is special software that lets you access, view, and search for sites on the Web. Browsers are available as shareware – meaning that they can be downloaded free or for a nominal charge from the Internet.