En esta guía veremos cómo descargar de la red, guardar páginas, marcadores del Netscape Navigator y favoritos del Internet Explorer.

In this guide we will learn how to download from the net, save pages, bookmarks in Netscape Navigator and favorites in Internet Explorer.

DOWNLOADING FROM THE NET

We can download or 'copy onto our computer' many things from the internet.

In fact, when we surf through the Web, we are constantly sending requests that download HTML documents and graphics to our hard drive so that the browser can read them from there.

This remains in the cache memory, a temporary part of the disk, until it receives new elements and has to replace it's old contents. Therefore, when we have seen a page and want to see it again, using the back button the machine will take very little to show it's content. This is because it is much quicker to read from the hard drive than to send a request to the net and wait to receive an answer.

A lot of programmes can be downloaded from the Internet. Some are free, some you pay for.

The three types of free software are:

• Freeware: programmes written by someone who decides to give them out or reduced versions of commercial programmes that can be bought (a way of introducing the user to the programme)

• Shareware: programmes that you can test before buying them. The user is asked to register after some time (sometimes notices appear asking us to register when we start the programme).

• Demoware o Trialware: programmes that deactivate after a certain period of time. They come with a time bomb which make them stop working.

To download programmes from the Internet you will need to follow the intructions that the web site offering them provides.

• Usually they ask you to provide them with your operating system version, what programme version you would like (if there is more than one) etc...

• Then you select the place from which the download will be made. Usually it is recommended to choose a nearby place in the planet. You can also ask to make the download from a country where there aren't too many people online at that time. (Remember that, for example, when in New York it is 12 pm, in South Africa it is 5am)

• Once we have finished with the preliminary steps we will need to say where on the hard disk we want to save it. Sometimes it is useful to save it on the Desktop considering that we will need to install the software afterwards. This way we'll easily know where it is.

• A window called Saving will open and the programme will download. This could take seconds or hours, depending on how big the programme is and the speed of the connection. This information will appear in the window.

• We can keep surfing while we download software from the internet.

A good place to get software from is www.download.com
There you have a small window to enter the programme name (or type of programme) you are looking for and see what they've got, with descriptions of what they do, how much space they take, dates and other information about the software.

GETRIGHT

I recommend you use GetRight to download software from the internet. It is a very useful programme because, if the server we are downloading from allows it, it can download a programme in parts. This means that it saves the part of the programme that has been downloaded, so that if the connection is cut off or we don't have time to continue at that moment, GetRight can resume the download where it left off and complete it at another time we are connected.

You can download it from www.download.com.

BOOKMARKS / FAVORITES

To avoid writing a URL address every time we want to access a web page, we can save a list of special links of our favorite sites. This works like an address book. We can give it a simple, easy name although it's address may be very long and difficult to remember.

This list of Bookmarks (Navigator) or Favorites (Explorer) can be updated very easily. As soon as you open a web page you like and want to remember it's address you can, with a simple click, add it to your list.

Once the bookmarks menu has opened you can point the folder where you want the new bookmark to appear and release it there.

To remove elements from the list or change their data (like the name) you can edit the list as if it were a Windows file list. You can also arrange it in different grooups according to subject, date, etc...

Navigator: Bookmarks menu - Edit bookmarks

Explorer: Favorites menu - Organize favorites

Activity

1 - Surf the WWW using the tools we've studied.

2 - Mark some of the pages you like as Bookmarks/Favorites.
If we like a site very much, it is convenient to mark it's Home Page as a bookmark and not all the pages of the site. This way we don't get our bookmarks list full of addresses and from the home page we can easily get to the pages we'd like to visit.

Another way of exploring the web is via catalogs or directories that other people consider as the best in the Web. This is related to the next guide: search engines. There are many web pages with these lists. This saves us a lot of time since the people in charge of making them select the best sites of the many on-line.

3 - Visit the following sites and find out about something you are interested in:

www.yahoo.com
www.altavista.com

4 - Choose a page you would like to save and make a copy of it to the desktop. (File - Save as... )

When we save a page from the browser, you are only saving the text. The graphics are saved separately. This is because you are only saving the HTML. The HTML doesn't include the graphics, it only makes a reference to it.

In some new Browsers you can now choose to save the text only, or the whole page with its related graphics.

5 - Choose a graphic. To save it you need to click on it with the right mouse button. A context menu will open. Choose the option Save Image as... o Save Picture as... and save it on your desktop.

6 - Open the Web Page from your brower. (File - Open)

7 - Open the graphic from your browser.