Module 1-2 Answers

Using Web Browsers

• 1. Click on the "Home" button in your browser.


• A. What is the title and URL of the web page you are defaulted to?


• - For the Firefox browser, the title is "Mozilla Firefox Start Page" and the URL is "about:home."


• B. Why did this appear? How can you change this default setting so that another web page automatically loads when you launch the web browser?


• - This appeared because it is the default home page. It can be changed by going to the firefox
  preferences window, and typing in a different URL under the text box that says, "Home page URL."


• 2. Can you change the appearance of web pages within your browser (e.g., the font faces and size)?
  If so, how? Why would you want to?


• - Yes, you can change the appearance of web pages within the browser.
  This is done by going into the preferences window under "Firefox" at the
  top of the browser bar. Under "content" you can edit font style, size, etc.


• 3. What's the default search engine associated with your web browser? How do you get to it?


• - The default search engine for the browser is Google. It can be found
  on the home page by clicking the home button or typing, "about:home" into
  the URL.

Searching the Web

• 4. Head to Google


• A. In the search box, type in "learning to make web pages" and click on the "Search" button. How many
  matches did you get?


• - 1,060,000,000 results in (.24 seconds).


• A (continued): Visit a couple of the sites in the search results list. Can you estimate how many of the searches
  actually relate to learning to make web pages?


• -I would estimate about 25% to 35% are relevant to my search


• B. Return to the front page of Google. In the search box, type in "Learning to
  make web pages" (with quotation marks) and click on the "Search" button. How many matches did you get?
  Link to a couple of the sites in the search results list.
  Can you estimate how many of the searches actually relate to learning to make web pages?


• Angel Fire


• Free Webs


• It seems that the relevancy varies per the search engine, however I would estimate the relevancy is between 15% and 20% on average.


• 5. Are the number of hits consistent across search engines? If not, what do you think accounts for the differences?
  After looking at each of the above search engines, what cases would you use a search engine that is not your current
  default (most likely Google)?


• The results numbers are not consistent by any means. Whereas Google turned out about 75,000 results, Bing turned
  up about 358 results. The differences are most likely attributed to the types of "spiders" or robots that crawl over the websites
  and picks up the relative information. I would use a search engine that is not Google (my current one) in the event that I was looking
  for a more concise list of links.


• 6. Take a look at Wolfram Alpha

Is this a search engine? If not, what would you call it? If you decide that it is, list the reasons that you
would classify it as a search engine.

• -I believe Wolfram Alpha is a search engine, because it seems to query the web for information relevant to the search
  and then it comes up with the most relevant answers (much like the most relevant links) based on what it finds.

Using Metasearch Sites

• 7. Head to Dogpile or to MetaCrawler.


• A. What is the main difference between a metasite and a regular search site?


• -The main difference between a metasite and a regular search is the metasite uses search results from several search engines


• B. Do a search for learning to make web pages. How many matches did you get? How are the matches organized?


• -The matches did not directly display over the search engine, however the results were displayed in order of
  relevance per the preferences default settings.


• C. Link to a couple of the sites in the search results list. Can you estimate how many of the searches
  actually relate to learning to make web pages?


• Page Tutor


• Make a Website


• -I would estimate that approximately 45-50% of the results are actually relevant to the original search.


• 8. Next, head to Mamma Mamma


• A. do a search for learning to make web pages. How many matches did you get? How are the matches organized?


• -The search turned up about 196,000,000 results. The matches were organized by relevance.


• B. How do the matches on Mamma differ form the matches you found in search 7?


• -It doesn't include results compiled form top search engines.

Finding Multimedia Elements

• 9. Either head to one of the search sites we've already used or head to one we haven't yet used
  and explore the front page of the site.


• A. Is there a way to search specifically for multimedia?


• -Yes


• B. If yes, what specific elements can you search for? What are your options? (If not, Try another site!)


• -The separate tabs indicate you can search for videos, images, and news.


• C. Do a search for a specific element (e.g., your favorite song, a picture of Britney Spears).
  How many matches do you get?


• -Searching for "Time to Pretend by MGMT" it turned up 3,020 results under Video


• D. Are there any warnings, disclaimers, or other information provided about using the results of your
  multimedia searches embedded in the search interface?


• -Under Bing, there doesn't appear to be any disclaimers in plain sight regarding embedded multimedia

Specialized Search Tools

• 10. In addition to the generalized search tools we have looked at in this module, there are new
  specialized tools being made available on a near-daily basis. Your final task in this module
  is to find a search tool for each of the following: Twitter, blogs, scholarly/academic publications,
  books, images, video, music.


• -Twitter has a search tool called "#Discover" that allows you to connect with things by
  theme or topic.
  The blog mashable.com has a search bar
  at the top of the page that allows you to search for keywords within that blog site.
  For scholarly and academic journals, Jstor.org allows you to search for academic and scholarly journals based on the field, topic, or keywords.
  For books, google has a section that allows you to search for books both for research and shopping
  purposes.
  For images, Bing allows you to search for images based on keywords typed into the search bar.
  For video, Yahoo! allows you to search for videos based on keywords typed into the search bar.
  For music, groove shark allows you to search for music by title, artist, etc. and add it to an online playlist for listening.

Here's the link back to my Index Page!