Figure 8.x: The view from www.google.com
| 8-2: Internet Services | ||
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While the Web contains many interesting pages, it offers some pretty neat tools as well. Let's take a look at some of the perks of the Internet.
Most of the time, when you want information on the Internet, you don't know the address of any particular Web site that would help. You just want information about some subject. For example, someone gives you a hydrangea, and you want to know about how to care for them.
A site that searches the Internet for a term or phrase is called a search engine. There are many search engines, but by far the most popular is the Google search engine located at www.google.com. The name Google is from the mathematical term googol, meaning the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.
When you bring up Google, it doesn't look like much.
Figure 8.x: The view from www.google.com
But this simple display masks one of the most powerful tools ever concieved. Simply type into the text ox whatever it is you're interested in, and click "Google Search". Pressing ENTER also works. Within seconds, a listing of sites pertaining to whatever it is you're searching for, listed in order of how likely it is to help. Simply click the title of the page to go there.
If you want to search for pictures rather than Web pages, simply click the Images link above the search box. Now, type in what you want an image of and press ENTER. The results page shows small preview images (thumbnails) for each result returned.
Figure 8.x: Example results from a sample image search
Clicking a thumbnail brings you to a page with two sections. The top frame shows you the image's thumbnail and a link to view the image in its original size. From here, you'll be able to save the picture by right-clicking it and selecting "Save Picture As..." from the context menu (in either IE or Firefox). The bottom frame displays the site that the picture was taken from.
http://www.google.com/help/index.html