Top Things You Must Realize When Searching

Written by Andrew Malek


Forrepparttar uninitiated, searching for web pages can seem a slow, obscure process. Unless you have a high-speed Internet connection, web pages may seem to take days to load. Andrepparttar 118949 searching itself – you have to admit it looks weird typing in bunches of plus signs, asterisks, parenthesis, and other funny symbols and operators to find what you want.

To help you in this process and show that you are not, I’ve compiled a top five list of things you must realize when searchingrepparttar 118950 web for information. No pencils will fly, no drums will roll, but you just might learn something.

5. Search Engines Have to Make Money

Before you grumble overrepparttar 118951 growing number of advertisements and sponsored links that appear in search engine results page, remember that most search engines are free. You’re not paying anything for a very costly service. Thus, these sites have to earn income somehow to stay afloat (computing power and bandwidth isn’t cheap!) So, to put it bluntly… live with it.

(Yes, I know some types of advertising are much more obtrusive than others. Popup ads, dancing animations, and other larger advertisements may make it harder to use some search engines that support these types of ads. If you don’t like it, vote with your mouse clicks and move to another search engine).

4. Sites Go Down

Worse yet, you’ve entered in your perfect search query, looked atrepparttar 118952 results page, andrepparttar 118953 first site you see no longer exists!

The Internet changes allrepparttar 118954 time. Unfortunately, search engines and directories are not able to constantly query every site onrepparttar 118955 Internet to see if they are still online. Occasionally (in other words, probably frequently) you will find links to web sites that no longer exist. It is just a part of life. Especially withrepparttar 118956 dot-com bust, many web site owners can no longer afford to host free resources. If they could not convert their traffic to paying customers, they just took their sites down.

So when you find a link that is dead, don’t pump your fist in anger … just go back torepparttar 118957 results page and move along. Or, better yet, if you’re using a search engine that caches pages, such as Google, just look atrepparttar 118958 cached version ofrepparttar 118959 now defunct pages and findrepparttar 118960 information contained therein. It’s like stepping through a time machine!

3. Your Web Browser Will Crash

On a related note, not only do web sites go down – but so may your web browser. Sometimes it will be due to visiting a multimedia-intensive web site. Sometimes it will seem to happen for no reason. But it will happen, and when it does, don’t go blaming yourself saying that you did something wrong.

Web browsers, like just about any other type of computer software program available onrepparttar 118961 market, are not infallible. They can and usually do contain bugs. These may predictably rear their ugly heads when visiting sites containing a lot of multimedia and advanced interactive elements, or they may appear completely at random.

The Open Web

Written by Paul /"the soaring/" Siegel


"It's grim,repparttar most grim it's been since I've been aroundrepparttar 118948 business."

This is David Geffen,repparttar 118949 famous music mogul, talking aboutrepparttar 118950 music business today.

Why is it so bad? Many reasons are offered, but to me,repparttar 118951 most important isrepparttar 118952 response ofrepparttar 118953 music industry torepparttar 118954 Web. They didn't like Napster that enabled music lovers to swap files. Instead of trying to find out more aboutrepparttar 118955 Web, they did what came naturally: they sued. They did not realize and still do not realize that anytime they get rid of a Napster 10 or more clones will pop up to replace it.

A slew of companies is working on what is euphemistically called "digital rights management". They want to limit access to information products - books, software, music - to an extent greater than could have been done beforerepparttar 118956 advent ofrepparttar 118957 Internet. They want to prevent file sharing. They want to reduce "fair use." Web consumers will not put up with this.

These companies believe that keeping things closed - boxed, copyrighted, encrypted - will give them a competitive advantage. They are using competitive thinking: Me against you. I win, you lose. Don't get in my way or you will be destroyed. Win markets by capturing customers.

This is old-fashioned thinking. The Web has changed our lives drastically. The Web encourages sharing. It encourages working together. It encourages cooperation. It encourages openness.

The Web is an open medium. Here are 4 examples of openness:

1 - OPEN SOURCE - Linus Torvalds wrote a nucleus for an operating system and gave awayrepparttar 118958 original code (source code) for free. He invited programmers to use, adapt, distribute, or improve it, all for free. Pretty soon, thousands of programmers all over repparttar 118959 world were working together for free to produce an excellent LINUX operating system. LINUX now competes with Microsoft's closed (copyrighted) operating system. In addition to LINUX, you can find a long list of free software atrepparttar 118960 GNU PROJECT (http://www.gnu.org).

2 - OPEN DIRECTORY - There is one directory that is different from allrepparttar 118961 others. Originally, it was called YOOHOO, a variation from YAHOO! Anybody may enter his website in this directory for no fee. Several volunteers, each knowledgeable in a different subject, edit entries and dorepparttar 118962 indexing. The directory is now called DMOZ orrepparttar 118963 Open Directory Project (http://www.dmoz.com).

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