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Learning Web Development on Google Chrome

June 8, 2011 by Leave a Comment
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Web development is an important tool that is becoming more relevant in a variety of different fields. If you’re interested in learning about coding, programming or just designing websites, there are lots of online or traditional courses you could learn from. Or consider downloading Google’s web browser, Google Chrome.

Chrome replaces other web browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari and has a host of built-in tools that can help budding and experienced web developers alike develop their skills and learn more about the web around them – and how they can apply what they learn to their online projects.

One of the most helpful built-in tools in Chrome for web developers is the “inspect page element” function. Right click on any web page or element on the page and choose the “inspect page element” function. This allows you to see the CSS, HTML, Javascript and other elements on the page. If you click on “Resources” from the top horizontal bar of the “inspect page element” document, you can actually render a graph that represents what percentage of the page is made up of the different elements which can give you a clue as to what you’d need to know to re-create such a page.

Besides just seeing the text, you can actually experiment with your own coding skills by creating a modified copy of any web page through the “inspect page element” function. Just start editing the code and then hit return to see how your changes look. It’s a great way to experiment with new code or find out why a certain element functions the way it does.

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How To Find Good Health Information Online

March 27, 2011 by Leave a Comment

A recent poll showed that over 88% of adults turn to the internet to find health information. This number is huge and it keeps rising. Just a few years ago there were less than 60 million adults that searched the internet looking for information about their symptoms, that number has now risen to over 180 million.

While it is important to be informed about what is going on, it is also important to make sure you are getting the right information. We all know that the web is full of information from people who do not necessarily know what they are talking about. There are many user contributed websites out there they you could use as a starting point, but never rely on them for the correct information.

Reading to much information on the internet can also send people into an unnecessary panic about their symptoms. You may think you have a disease just because you have symptoms that are similar to what you are reading about. It may also may lead you to believe you don’t have a disease when you actually do since symptoms can be different for different people.

There is good information available from respected medical facilities such as New York University and The Mayo Clinic. You can also use the website for the CDC as a reference, but never substitute your online research for an actual doctors visit. Even if you think you have diagnosed what you may have, you should always follow your own research with an old fashioned trip to your doctor.

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Using the Library for Online Research

March 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment

When students are assigned a research project whether it is a paper, a presentation, or a video, the first place they turn to get information is the internet. The problem with this is that the information they find on the internet is always necessarily the quality they need.

The web offers an incredible amount of access to all kinds of information including current news, and the perspectives and thoughts from experts in every field you can imagine. But it is also a public platform where anyone can give their opinion. There is no real system of checks and balances. It is important to be extremely critical of the source of the information you find on the web.

One of the best ways to get good information is to use a library website. Public libraries and school libraries will often have subscriptions to online sources that are good sources for any kind of research. These sources are usually an oline version of many sources you used to use in their print form at the library. You can now just access their online version. It is easy to cite journals, scholarly magazine articles, newspapers, and government documents.

It is also important to learn the proper way to cited online references. The standards for citing sources you find online is still in the process of developing. At this point the most important part of citing is to give as much information as you can about the source. Always include the title, the author, what the publication is, and even the URL. Some good sources on how to properly cite an online source is the MLA Style Sheet, and Hacker & Fister’s Research & Documentation Online.

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Search Engines and Directories: What They Can Do For You

March 5, 2011 by Leave a Comment

There are several different ways to search for information on the internet. Many people automatically turn to Google when they need to find information, but there may be a better way depending on the kind of information you are looking for.

Search Directories are databases that have results that are chosen by real people. Yahoo is a search engine that offers this through their special directory page. A directory is a good option when you only have a very general idea of what you need. A search directory uses text from the title and a description of the site instead of text from the actual site.

Search Engines. This is what we are all most familiar with. Google and Bing fall into this category and have the most amount of users. They use a computer program to search the web based on the words you enter into the query box. If you know what you are looking for these are a good option.

Metasearch engines. A metasearch engine search a number of search engines and directories all at the same time. This may be a good place to start, but there are shortfalls. Since different search engines use different languages, you may not get the best results from each individual database. If your query is complicated you should probably go right to a single search engine. The benefit of using a metasearch engine is that some of them have additional features such as clustering that are not found on the regular search engines.

Specialized search engines focus on only one kind of information such as news, blogs, or academic journals.

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Where to Find Websites with Good Opinions and Good Perspectives

February 27, 2011 by Leave a Comment

If you are doing research, sometimes you need to find opinions about issues. This may be to get a different opinion from your own, or maybe you need to be able to provide more than one perspective on an issue. Finding well written opinions on the internet can be difficult since there are so many people out there giving their opinions.

If you have been struggling to find opinion pieces on the internet check out some of these websites. They will give you a good starting spot for many different subjects.

  • HeadlineSpot Opinion/Editorials. This website has a huge list of US newspapers and the links will get your right to the editorials and the opinion pieces. There are also some international newspapers listed.
  • PollingReport. This sites gives the results of many different surveys given to US residents. There are surveys on everything from politics, to business, and education.
  • Newspaperindex. This website offers newspapers from different countries all over the world. The countries are organized in alphabetical order so you can easily look for a specific country.
  • Social Issue. This website was developed for high school students who need to find information on different social issues. Each topic offers information and links to both sides of the issue. It also will get them to any court cases or decisions that may have affected the issue at any time. Even though this was developed for high school students, it is a great resource for all ages.
  • Publicagenda. This site gives a good analysis for social issues and where the public stands on them. There are pros and cons for each issue with links to organizations that support them. You can also decide what kind of information you need.

There is a lot of information on the internet, and a lot of it is well written and legitimate. Just make sure to verify all your sources to make sure they are coming from someone who knows what they are talking about.

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Good References on the Web

February 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment

If you are looking for information on the internet and you are not sure where to start, you can use some of these. Here is a list of websites with credible reference information that can be used. Some of these may require a subscription in order to use the full versions, while others are free and open to all users.

  • Encyclopedia Britannica. This is the same encyclopedia that you would find in print, but just the online version. You do need to sign up for a subscription, but there is a free trial period you can take advantage of if you only need to use it for a short time.
  • Encyclopedia.com. This has thousands of articles that are provided by several different trusted sources. Some of the sources include The Columbia Encyclopedia, Medical Encyclopedias, Websters Dictionary, The Oxford Pocket Dictionary, and several others. You can find a list of the references at the bottom of the landing page.
  • Purdue University Reference. This is a pretty comprehensive site full of reference material. There is quite a bit that is local to Purdue and the area, but there is also a lot of other information as well.
  • Educator’s Reference Desk. This is a great resource for teachers and educators. It includes tips on teaching, lesson plans, education standards, and many other resources for all different grades. The page was developed by the Information Institute of Syracuse.
  • The Internet Public Library. This is a web based library that puts all kinds of reference materials right at your fingertips. It has links to credible material in any subject you could possibly think of. You can look for information by subject, or look for newspaper and magazines. There is also a section for kids and a section for teenagers.
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Tips for Internet Research: Website Evaluation

February 13, 2011 by Leave a Comment

When you are doing any kind of internet research you should also to research on your sources. If you keep a checklist of things to think about and determine as you are looking for information you can easily determine it if is credible. Credibility is necessary for any kind of citation in an academic paper.

  • First, look at authority. Determine who is in charge of the website. Is is a legitimate business or organization? You can determine this by looking for contact information or a link to their page. From there you can verify their legitimacy. If you can not verify any of this information, you should not use the website as a source.
  • Is the information accurate? You can determine accuracy in a few different ways. First look for cited sources. If there are good sources listed, the information you are getting is most likely god. Look for the qualifications of the author and how well the article is written. A well written page is more likely to be credible than one with spelling mistakes and grammar errors.
  • Is there a bias? Look at the motivation behind the page. Is is an organization trying to sell their position on an issue? Are there are advertisements all over the page so the content is not the focus? If you see these things, you should not use this website as a source.
  • Good old common sense. Your best tool for finding good sources on the internet is your own common sense. If you don’t think it is a good source, then it probably is not a good source. Move on to the next one and go from there. There is no reason to risk adding a source that is not credible when there is so much good information available.
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How to Screen The Information You Find on the Internet

January 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The information on the internet is always changing and evolving. There is a continuous stream of content being created every day. There is also a huge variety of different kinds of information including opinions, facts, fiction, statistics, and sales material. There are also varying levels of reliability and of quality of information.

In order to make sure you are getting exactly what you need from the information you find on the internet you can use a short screening process.

The first step starts before your search does. You want to think about what kind of information you are actually looking for. Do you need statistics and facts, or are you looking for opinions? Is the reason for your research to find a new idea, or are you looking to back up an opinion you already have? Once you have this information the process of finding what you are looking for will be much easier.

The next stage in the screening process is to decide what kinds of sources will be the most helpful in reaching your goal. If you are looking for statistics you know you can pass over blogs and other opinion based websites. If you are looking for a different opinion about a subject, you might be able to start with a blog that has an opinion and then go on from there.

With so much information available it is important to realize that you don’t need to use the first website you come across. You don’t want to spend all day researching one topic, but you can also do a little digging to make sure you are getting all you need.

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How to Find the Information You Need

January 11, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Starting a search for information on the internet can be overwhelming. You think you are doing the right thing when you enter in your question on a search engine, but then you get millions of results and you don’t know where to start to find out exactly what you need.

The key to getting the right information is to define what you actually need and then take advantage of the features that many search engines offer. The search engine you use will depend on what you really need to find out.

  • If you need understand the entire scope of a subject you can start with a site such as Intute or INFOMINE. These are both good websites for searching academic subjects.
  • If you need to expand your scope and find topics that are related to yours you can use Googles “related searches” or their “wonder wheel”. Bing will also give you ideas for searches that are related to your subject.
  • If you need to narrow down your subject you can look on websites such as Wikipedia to learn more about a topic and then pick one aspect to focus on. Surfwars is also a good site where you can enter in your query and then click on “focus” to show topics that are related.
  • If you are looking for a controversial issue to research or write about, try going to Google’s “Hot Topics”. IDEA Portal is also a good website that shows both the pros and the cons for many controversial subjects.
  • If you are looking to gather information on the background of a certain subject, you can start with Wikipedia.

All these are good places to start, but you should always use a number of different sources when you are gathering information. Make sure you get back up information and sources for user generated websites such as Wikipedia.

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Tips on Recognizing a Fake Website

January 9, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The internet is full of good information. The problem is that the internet is also full of bad information. It is important to be aware that you can not believe everything you see and read on the internet. Just like you can’t believe everything you see on TV or read in the newspapers. You need to look carefully at everything you see on the internet.

There are a few things you can look for when you are trying to decide if a website is legitimate or not. There are a lot of spammers out there trying to make money off of internet users, but if you do your homework and look at everything with a critical eye, you will see the differences.

  1. Check the URL. Always look at the address of websites you are visiting. There are some websites that will try to impersonate a legitimate site by just changing the spelling. If you are not sure how to spell the name of the company or service you are looking for, check into it first.
  2. Try the links. If you click on a link and it leads you to a blank page, or it doesn’t go anywhere at all, you are probably on a fake website. You can also check this out by just bringing your mouse to the link and hovering. make sure it is going to where it says it is going.
  3. Look for dates on the page. This could be a date that the page was last updated, or a date that something was posted by a user. If it has been updated fairly recently, it is more likely that the page is legitimate and someone is taking the time needed to update information. If the last time the site was touched was two years ago, you should quickly move on.
  4. Look at the number of advertisements on the page. If a page has more ads than actual content then the site is probably there only to generate money for someone. This is sometimes a tough call because there are many legitimate websites that use advertising, but again, look at it with a critical eye.
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