Using Internet Resources

    Project 3 : Internet Hunt

 

 

Introduction

Although the internet is a vast source of information and data, it is not user friendly.

• First the user must know how to find the information
• Once the information the user must make a judgment about the validity of the data and value of the information. There are many ethical and moral issue that need to be discussed.
• If the information if valid, then what are the rules for using this information.

Objectives

• To familiarize users with search engines available to fine information.
• To practice finding information using various search engines.
• To evaluate the validity of the information found.
• To report the information in a word processing document that includes a description of the information found graphics from the sites and an evaluation of the information.

Assignment

1. Do a review of the capabilities of several search engines to find information.

   In your report :

   1. Compare all of your search engines in finding a persons name.
   2. Compare your search engines in finding information about colleges that have your major.
   3. What's unique about this search engine? special features?
   4. What's good and what's bad about this search engine?
   5. If you do the same search on several search engines, do you find the same sites. Make comparisons of the search engines you tried.
   6. [Here are some search engines for you to investigate - AltaVista, Whatis.com, About,com, Yahoo.com, Excite.com, WebCrawler.com, Google, Northern Light, Ask Jeves,etc.

2. Use the search engine of your choice to find three good on-line computer dictionaries.
   1. Give examples of their definitions for at least three computer words.
   2. Do they have pictures?
   3. Which of these dictionaries do you recommend?
      E.g. http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rbeard/diction3.html

3. Use a search engine of your choice to find information about our four or more important computers both past and present.
   1. Find information on least 4 important computers.
   2. The report should contain pictures, a short description of each computer, year introduced, chief use, cost, speed, memory, disk storage - all these things if possible.

   3. An example of the information required is :

      Manufacturer : Apple Name : Apple II Processor : MOS 6502 Speed: 1.0 MHz Memory : RAM 4-48k ROM 16k Date : 1977 Price $1295 from http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/7533/aII.html

      This classic beauty may have started the PC revolution. It looked like a typewriter so it did not scare people. It had only upper case letter, amazing. It was the standard work horse for quite a few years here at Messiah. If these words were a quote they would be quotes with the source, but they are my own words. [If there are no ""'s then this is my writing. You must have graphics of the computers to receive a grade of A.

      ..

4. Find at lease three sites that are about your hobby or other special interest.
   1. For your report write a paragraph to explain why this information is important to you.
   2. Give three locations [URL], the title, an example of some of the useful information from each site.
   3. An example of the type of report required is :

      Graphics	Sites
      	YELLOW BREECHES Creek near CAMP HILL, PA [See note 2 below.] YOUGHIOGHENY River below CONFLUENCE, PA - paddle above 1.5 feet. [Gauge reading is higher than reading at Ohio pile put in by 6 inches or more! POTOMAC River at Little Falls near Washington, D.C. SHENANDOAH RIVER at Cootes Store, VA

Report

The report for this project should be a professional report with the items requested for each question and graphical or textual output for each question. Find the items listed in each of the questions below.

Internet Search Tips

1. Many search engines feature a link to an "advanced search," with instructions on how to combine or eliminate terms.

2. Many of the search engines rank the occurrence of terms so that, if you type in college scholarship, you will get the pages with the most matches on both of those terms first. Usually, you will see a percentage, indicating how closely the words on the page match your search terms.

3. Some of the search engines use "OR" as a default. This means that you will get a list of sites that include one of any of the terms you used to search. If you search for blue moon, you will get a list of sites for blue suede shoes, moon pies, etc.

4. To retrieve sites with all the terms you have entered, try AND or +.
   To eliminate terms, try NOT or -. To search for a phrase, try WITH or put quotation marks around it ("blue moon").

5. Vary your vocabulary.
   Try cyan, azure, or cornflower instead of blue.
   Vary your spelling.
   
   The Internet is a global network, so, to search on the word color, try color and colour, and maybe even Farbe or couleur. Truncate your words, usually with a * (for instance, color* will turn up coloring, colors, colorized)

6. Ask Jeeves specializes in questions.

7. Meta search engines like Google, Dog Pile, Northern Lite allow you to search many search engines at once.

8. Some search engines allow search by categories.
   Yahoo is an example. However, even AltaVista has categories as an option. See the example the at right.

Display of Search Engines Results

1. Google
   Slinky Home Page
   ... Slinky Home Page - Welcome ! Started by Kelly Robinson...
   ...NetLinks." Physics Experiments with the Slinky!! Slinky walking...
   www.messiah.edu/hpages/facstaff/barrett/slinky/home.htm - Cached - 4k - GoogleScout
   What does cached mean?
   

2. LYCOS

   .Experiments - Slinky walking speed vs. angle - Slinky Walking Speed vs. Angle This experiment attempted to find three things: the critical angle for Slinky walking, the terminal velocity of Slinky walking, and the critical angle for Slinky sliding

   http://www.messiah.edu/hpages/facstaff/barrett/slinky/speed.htm
   Why did LYCOS pick this site over the index/home page?

3. Dogpile.com
   7. Bob Barrett's Home Page
   

   The Physics Teachers' Index, Resonant Bridge Video, Science and Faith Page, the Slinky Home Page [fun experiments], Home page helps [dividers, instruction ...],

   www.messiah.edu

4. GO.COM
   1. Slinky Home Page The Slinky Toy [Experiment] Homepage, FUN experiments, cool things to do with Slinky ...
   Relevance: 100% Date: 20 Sept 1999, Size 3.5K,
   http://www.messiah.edu/hpages/facstaff/barrett/slinky/home.htm
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