Module 1

Using Web Browsers

1. After clicking on the "Home" button:
• After clicking on the "Home" button in the browser, the title is "Blackboard Learn" and the URL is mymasonportal.gmu.edu.
• This appeared because we are currently on university computers and Blackboard is the main system that students and faculty use 24/7. You can change the homepage by clicking on the "Tools" button on the toolbar and select "Options".
2. There will be a section that says "Home Page" and you are able to enter in the URL of your desired homepage. You can change the appearance of the web pages by clicking on the "View" button on the toolbar and there will options for you to zoom in/out or change what you're able to view on the toolbar.
   Individuals would like to change the appearance because it can sometimes be hard for people to see the text on the computer
   screen.
3. The default search engine on my MAC is Google. I can access it by simply clicking on the URL bar and type in any subject
   that I would like to search.

Searching the Web

1. Different Search Engines:
• Google:After searching for learning to make web pages, about 329,000,00 results appeared. About half of the searches have a little
  tutorial on how to make web pages. The other half of the results are advertisements for programs that you can purchase or agencies
  that you can pay to have them build the website for you. After searching for "learning to make web pages" with the quotation marks, about 24,200 results appeared. More than half of the results actually show you how to make web pages. Our class website appears as well.
• Bing: Searching for learning to make web pages, about 122,000,000 results appeared. Many of the sites lead to buying programs
  on building your own website. After searching to make web pages with the quotation marks, about 12,700 results appeared.
  The results stayed the same with sites linking to other sites for buying computer programs or sites that seem untrustworthy.
• AltaVista (Yahoo): About 220,000,00 results appeared after searching how to make web pages. Many of the results are the same regarding many of the sites
  stating you should download different software and that they are available for purchase. After searching with the quotation marks, more of the sites
  seem untrustworthy.
• Teoma (Ask): After searching learning to make web pages, I am unsure of the amount of the results because it does not state an exact number like
  the other search engines. More than half of the results seem untrustworthy and some of the first results are that of different universities you can attend to learn computer programming. When searching learning to make web pages with the quotation marks, half of the results seem
  trustworthy and the other half does not.
• BlowSearch: There are many pages of results that appear but there is no exact number. Many of these sites link to other pages to purchase different
  software on learning to make web pages. When I add in the quotations, the same type of sites appear.
• Kartoo: This website did not work.
2. I believe the number of hits to be consistent across the search engines but the type of results are different dependent upon the search engine. I believe it to be that way because it's possible that the many unknown search engines do not have access to the sites that may actually be helpful. If Google were not available to me, I would then use the Bing search engine. But that is only IF Google were not accessible.
3. I do not believe the Wolfram Alphato be a search engine because when I searched for learning to make web pages, statistics appeared rather than actual sites on learning to make web pages. I would call it more like a data/statistics search engine.

Using Metasearch Sites

4. Dogpile.com
• After visiting Dogpile.com, I feel a metasite is a compiling of search results from a multitude of search engines while a regular search engine is a compiling of results from one search engine.
• After searching learning to make web pages, many results appeared but it was hard to tell exactly how many. The results were organized by ads and web results.
• It seems many that although the results are divided by ads and web results, the majority of the web results are ads as well to promote purchasing software
5. Mamma.com
• After searching for learning to make web pages, more than 16 pages of results appear. They are organized by ads and web results
• The organization of results do not differ as much from Dogpile.com. Most of the results appear to be ads as well.

Finding Multimedia Elements

6. Yahoo.com
• Yes there is a way you can search for different types of multimedia. On the left hand side of the page, there are different links that lead to other pages where you can view videos and play different games.
• You can search for videos, games, images, blogs, etc.
• I searched for images of Russian Olympic skater Julia Lipnitskaia's routine and a full page of images appeared
• There aren't any disclaimers or warning regarding the use of the images

Web Hosting Sites

7. dreamhost.com
• Cost: $8.95/mo
• Features: Unlimited storage, bandwidth, 97-day money back guarantee
• Benefits: 24/7 technical support, WordPress, ability to cancel anytime
• I would most likely choose this site because it seems affordable, there is assistance at all times, and if you're unhappy, you're available to cancel at anytime.