PUBLISHED WORKS
Kehoe, Brendan. (1993). Zen and the Art of the Internet: a Beginner's Guide (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-010778- 6. Index.
Krol, Ed. (1992). The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog. Sebastopol,
CA: O'Reilly & Associates. ISBN 1-56592-025-2.
LaQuey, Tracey, & Ryer, J. C. (1993). The Internet Companion: a
Beginner's Guide to Global Networking.. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
ISBN 0-201-62224-6
Marine, April. (1992). INTERNET: Getting Started. Menlo Park, CA: SRI
International. ISBN 0-944604-15-3
Tennant, Roy, Ober, J., and Lipow, A. G. (1993). Crossing the Internet Threshold: An Instructional Handbook. Berkeley, CA: Library Solutions Press. ISBN: 1-882208-01-3 (Library Solutions Institute and Press, 2137 Oregon Street, Berkeley, CA 94705. Voice: 510/841-2636 FAX: 510/841-2926)
<Chapter 28> Glossary
[This chapter is under construction]
<Appendix A> COMPUTER HINTS FOR THE *REALLY* GREEN
1. (turning on) Make sure the computer is plugged in and on. Is something on the screen? Can you hear a fan? Does anything happen when you type or move the mouse? Are lights lit or flashing? The screen may be frozen by a "hold" button (look for a light labelled "scroll lock" or something similar. Try touching the upper left button on the keyboard— F1, "escape", "hold", "break", whatever). If the computer is not on look for a switch on back or a key labelled "on" or with a triangle on it.
2. (using a mouse) Determine whether you are looking at a character terminal or a window-oriented screen. If window-oriented, then moving the mouse should cause a pointer to appear and move around. Use this pointer to click on windows, buttons, etc. You click the mouse by pressing its button (leftmost one if there are three). If you hold the mouse button down you can "grab" things and drag them around. Clicking on windows makes them active (ready for commands) and brings them forward.
3. (modifier and function keys) Keys labelled "shift", "alt", "meta", "option", "command", "ctrl" or marked with certain funny symbols are modifier keys. They work like shift keys on a typewriter and can change the effect of typing a key or clicking a mouse button. Function keys, labelled F1, F2, etc., do something immediately—like edit, move to the next page, or quit the program—when you press them. The keys on the keypad (right hand side, looks like a calculator pad) act as function keys in some programs.
4. (popup menus and menubars). If there is a string of words at the top of the screen ("menubar"), touch one of the words with the pointer using the mouse and then hold down the mouse button. A menu should pop up. If you continue holding down the mouse button and drag down the menu, then let go, you will select one of the commands. If you don't want to activate a command, drag the pointer away from the commands (towards the middle of the screen, say) and let go.
5. (getting the computer's attention) No luck? Try hitting "return" or "enter" a few times, look for keys labelled "break" or "escape", try "control-C" (hold down the key labelled "CTRL"—it works like the shift key on a typewriter—and then press "c", then let go of both keys).
6. (carriage return) Once the system is responding you usually have to hit the carriage return key (marked with a hooked arrow or "return" or "enter" or "CR" or "newline") or else click the mouse (left-most button if there are three) before anything permanent happens—like sending a command to the computer.
An exception is in "menu-driven" systems which print a list of options and expect you to type a number or letter (like "y" for yes, "n" for no). Sometimes answering a question with a carriage return gets you a default answer. The default is often indicated in brackets:
Do you really want to quit [n]?
Hitting return here will not quit.
7. (delete key) If you make a typing mistake, there is a key in the upper righthand corner labelled "del", "delete", "backspace", or with a backwards arrow or "x" on it that will erase what you typed.
8. (logging on) If you see a message like this:
Hello. Welcome to FUBAR system. Authorized persons only.
Username: xxx
Password:
then the computer wants you to give it a username (nickname, handle) and type a password. Type your last name and hit return; then type your password and hit return. If you are sure the system is meant for the general public—say it is a donor database run by the Red Cross—try obvious names like "redcross", "anonymous", or "public". If the account is meant for general use then: (1) no password will be required, or (2) any password at all will work, or (3) the password will be something easy like "redcross" (again) or "donor" or "guest".
9. (system prompts and help) If the computer prints a funny symbol (called a prompt—often it is a dollar sign, percent sign, question mark, right angle bracket or some such) and sits there blinking at you, it is waiting for a command. Try "help" or "?" to find out what is possible. Or try "man intro" (UNIX systems only) to read the online manual. There might be a help key or help command on a menu.
10. (text buffers) At some point you may be composing a message. You type the message, of course. You may or may not have to type "return" at the end of each line—experiment with this. You can erase any mistakes with the delete key. See if the cursor (blinking marker that marks where you type) can be moved around with arrow keys or a mouse. If there is a mouse, you can select text by "dragging" across it (hold down button, move mouse, release mouse). Once selected a large block of text can be deleted with the delete key or moved by issuing the "cut" command (look for a function key or command on the "edit" menu) and then the "paste" command.
11. (usernames) if you need to know someone's username, try their last name (goodwin) , first initial or both initials and last name (jgoodwin, jegoodwin), or all three initials (jeg). Be warned that many sites add numbers (goodwin21), use serial numbers (g21135), or use cutesy aliases (thumper). Usernames are usually all lowercase.
12. (case sensitivity) if nothing seems to work the way it is supposed to check your caps lock. Most systems are either case-sensitive (like UNIX) or automatically translate commands to all upper case. Thus "help", "HELP", and "Help" are either three differnt commands or one and the same.
13. (saving your work) With most programs, whatever you do or change is not permanent unless you write the changes to disk. You "save" your work by selecting "save" from the "file" menu or some other method. Often there are two commands for exiting—one that saves your work and one that discards it. For example, "exit" might save changes and "quit" ignore them. If your program does not have an "autosave" feature—and even if it does—you should save your work every 15 minutes at least.
14. (quitting or logging off) After you have properly saved your work you can quit your program or system by finding the quit command (look at the bottom of either the first or last menu on the menu bar), or by typing "quit", "exit", "q", "x", "bye", "lo", "logout", "logoff", or something similar.