Week 1: Clear

In 2008, Google stated " there were about 1 trillion different URLs." I don't know about anyone else but I definitely can't go through all of those manually, I need a lot of computer and automated help. Search engines and subject directories are two of the most important tools for finding information. Search engines use different programs or tools to make finding information easier. Those tools include:

Indexing: Indexing is a data structure that improves the speed of data retrieval operations on a database table at the cost of slower writes and increased storage. These programs are called "bots" or "spiders."

Querying: Is a query that a user enters into a web search engine to satisfy his or her own information needs. Web search queries are distinctive in that they are unstructured and often ambiguous.

Diversity: Diversity in search engines means that there are many different search engines out there. So just don't settle for one, go out there and try a few of them before you settle your mind on which information to use.

Examples of search engines:

http://www.google.com

http://search.yahoo.com

http://www.ask.com

Subject directories, unlike search engines, are created and maintained by human editors, not electronic spiders or robots. The editors review and select sites for inclusion in their directories on the basis of previously determined selection criteria. The resources they list are usually annotated. Directories tend to be smaller than search engine databases, typically indexing only the home page or top level pages of a site. They may include a search engine for searching their own directory.

Two important things to remember when on the web are, netiquette and copyright. Netiquette, or net etiquette, refers to etiquette on the Internet. Good netiquette involves respecting others' privacy and not doing anything online that will annoy or frustrate other people. Three areas where good netiquette is highly stressed are e-mail, online chat, and newsgroups. For example, people that spam other users with unwanted e-mails or flood them with messages have very bad netiquette. You don't want to be one of those people. If you're new to a newsgroup or online chat room, it may help to observe how people communicate with each other before jumping in. Copyright is the ownership of an intellectual property within the limits prescribed by a particular nation's or international law. In the United States, for example, the copyright law provides that the owner of a property has the exclusive right to print, distribute, and copy the work, and permission must be obtained by anyone else to reuse the work in these ways. Copyright is provided automatically to the author of any original work covered by the law as soon as the work is created. A copyright lasts a lifetime plus 70 years after the authors life.