Subject: CISB102 Lesson 2 -

Question 1: Email Personal Introduction to the Class June 20, 1999

Greetings fellow classmates, My interests include songwriting (folk and upbeat love songs), playing guitar, canoeing and camping, building and working on computers (expensive hobby ), creating web pages (I plan on doing for a living), and spending time with my family (not nearly enough since going back to school:-( Is it just me or does this first level class seem to require an abundance of homework? By puting in the time now I am hoping to create an online business and/or work in the computer field as a Systems Analysist. The Internet has only become a part of Mainstream Society since 1995 and there is still lots of opportunity. I have been online since October 1998 and use Voyager - http://home.voyager.net/web/start - as my ISP (Internet Service Provider) which provides a PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol) connection at 26,400 bps most of the time. Cost is reduced to about $16.67 per month by paying 6 months in advance . . . however, I have a second phone line put on for this and my monthly cost is really $48.08 to be online. I am giving some serious thought to an ISDN service. Good Luck with your studies, Vene Thomas (alias Veneom)

Question 2: E-mail to two individuals in class regarding Web sites they listed.

I have not received a reply from either.

17 June 1999
Sent to: John Thompson

Dear John, Checked out your link to http://www.whatis.com/ and used it to find some info on a java script I am truing to get to work on my first frame site for cisb258. This site has multiple ways to do a search (I like that) and has a good layout. I have book marked it and will probably go there more than a few times this term to look for answers to some of my page building questions. Thanks for the link. I also am hoping to break into the computer field as you have done but have not gotten the courage to give up my job of 13 years with Value City Furniture yet. Hope all is going well with your networking job at CMH and that your upcoming addition to the family goes smoothly. Vene

Sent to: Richard Miller

Dear Richard, Yahoo is cool. I prefer it over newsgroups because it doesn't burden you with a ton of email. I guess for this lesson we are going to learn what it is like to receive loads of letters (LOL). :-0 You should note that I sent this as a reply and also to your address listed in your "Personal Introduction to the Class" letter. When you send an email to the class or the Instructor using the JULIEMH mail service, you should go to the Edit > Preferences section and change the Mail > Identity section to show your first and last name. You can change it back after you send your email. This is a requirement of the class. Or . . . you could use the email site you created at Yahoo! I used the link you provided in lesson 1 and arrived at a ZDNet page that said, "SORRY ... but we are unable to find the page that you have requested." For future reference, instead of providing a link to a specific page, http://www.zdnet.com/yil/com/yil/content/depths/useful/25mostuse back off to a more general page when providing a URL (unless you want to provide particular information). http://www.zdnet.com/ would have been sufficient. That aside, I love this site! It has so much info on computers and programing and downloads I could spend hours here! Good Luck with this class! Best Regards, Vene

Questions 3: Bookmarks & Retracing Your Steps

Bookmarks is the term used in my Netscape Navigator version 4.5 where I have already created a folder with sub-folders for this class. In it I have links to the Lesson page, AltaVista Forum, and the default page for CISB 102, with sub-folders for keeping links to the home pages of the newsletters I have signed-up for and others pages I have visited in fullfilling the homework requirements. For the purpose of this lesson, I created a folder on my desktop by using the Right Click feature of the Win 98 operating system. I "renamed" the folder WebPage URLS. I then opened the folder and selected File > New > Shortcut. This brought up a window asking for a "command line". I then copied the URL from the browser's Location Toolbar and pasted this into the "command line" and pressed enter. The next window that came up had the default name of "New Internet Shortcut" listed as the name for this shortcut. I highlighted this and changed the name to "CISB 102 Lessons" and then pressed enter. This created a shortcut with the Netscape Navigator Icon showing with the title I gave it listed. When clicked on, this shortcut starts the browser and brings up the site. Four ways, besides using Bookmarks, to get back to a site already visited but didn't set a bookmark for with Netscape are as follows: 1. Click on the "Back" button on the top toolbar in the Netscape Browser window. 2. Open the GO menu in the Menu bar of the Netscape Browser window (if you are still online). Then click on the site you see listed that you want to go back to. 3. In the browser select (click on) Communicator > Tools > History. Then select from the sites listed there. Click on the one you want to open. 4. Click the Down Arrow in the Location Field of the browser window and choose from the pop-up menu.

Question 4: Cache

In Netscape 4.5 I went to Edit > Preferences > Cache to see that 1024 Kb was set for memory cache and 7680 Kb of disk space is allotted to disk cache. Once per session the document in cache is compared (checked for updates) with the page on the network. I currently have 27 files in my disk cache which are mostly "gif" files with a few "htm" and "jpg" files. I have some software loaded on my machine that cleans out my cache and also use Win 98's System Tool called "Disk Cleanup" on a regular basis. In my system, clicking on a gif or jpg file in the cache folder results in the graphic being displayed in MGI Photo Suite because this is the software I have setup as my default for viewing graphic files.

Question 5: Looking at a site in-depth

While ZDnet http://www.ZDnet.com/ is composed of thousands of links to other sites, my educated guess is that this site may contain somewhere around 3 million pages. I make this guess based on an apparent number used in the URL to one of their pages. http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,2239354,00.html?chkpt=hpqs02203 The basic lay out of the site is 3 columns with a banner on the top for advertizing and a banner on the bottom with links to the major areas of the site. This site is an awesome portal to all kinds of information on computers including this listing of the major areas of the site (contained in a banner at the bottom of their Home page): Reviews News Downloads Shop MyZDNet Games ZD TV Forums AnchorDesk PC Magazine PC Week Help! Yahoo! Internet Life and some of the additional, more specific links located at the top section of the home page: Win 98 Learn Online DVD Guide Best Buys Plug-in Guide Web Freebie Linux Tools E-mail Alerts From these titles it should be apparent what one can learn and do at ZDnet. This site is a lot like My Yahoo in that signing up for a free membership you recieve an online e-mail account and the ability to customize the information presented to you at their site. While webmaster@zd.com is their major e-mail address to report a problem with the site, they also have a page with links to ask a question on specific areas of the site that can be found at http://www.zdnet.com/cc/contact.html The Best feature of this site is that it has a banner containing links to the major areas of information while having links in the coloums with titles of specific pages of interest that is updated daily. The Worst feature of this site is that in the "ZDNet Featured Links" found on some of their pages and in the "menus" at some of their other sites, they have a link to the very site you are currently viewing which reloads the site

Question 6: The web page with links was uploaded on June 22, 1999.

Web Page Building Links

Question 7: Newsletters I subscribed to:

AnchorDesk (from ZDnet) TipWorld: Internet Newsgroups Reviews Windows 98 Windows NT Cnet.com: Dispatch html Builder Dispatch Builder Design Dispatch Shareware Dispatch Computers Dispatch Activex Dispatch I have received newsletter from the AnchorDesk, TipWorld, and ActiveX Dispatch. The others will probably follow later as they are weekly. So far I like AnchorDesk's method of sending a brief outline on the tech news of the day with a link to the information. This way I can keep informed of what is happening without having to wade thru pages and pages of information. If I want to know more I can simply click the link and instead of creating another bookmark I need only save the letter to have a ready reference.

Question 8: The date and Subject line of my Forum posting

for Lesson 2: Reply 2.14 posted at the Forum on 06/21/99 09:26 PM

Nation's Leading Entertainment Software Retailer Launches E-Commerce Business ************