HW 13: Searching and Bookmarks

Searching Tutorial

The internet has large possibilities for transmitting information. It can be a valuable tool if used properly.
You will cover the use of a search engine and boolean searches.
Start with one of the earliest search engines: Yahoo!
The text field at the top of the page is where you will type in your search words.
To search for a site with information on cows type "cow"
It has 10 million pages. This search is too broad. You don't want this many "hits" with a search. Cow is a bad search.
What do you want to know about cows? Obviously you want to know about diseases of cows.
Try typing: cow +disease
The + sign -- the following term MUST appear. Different from typing: cow disease, where either may appear. It will often give the same results, for both will first list the "and" hits, but lack of the "+" will also allow the "or" hits to appear.
1.5 million hits. Much better. As the search gets more specific, less of the frivilous sites appear.
Several music sites come up. We don't want those... Now we will use a minus sign in our search field
Type: cow +disease -music
1 million sites. Better and better.
Get rid of Mad Cow's disease now. How to do it: Type: cow disease -music -mad
.4 million sites, still too many!
go to advanced search and find only sites updated within the last 3 months within the .edu domain.
We just went from 10 million sites to 9 thousand sites and now we can read about cow disease
This is called narrowing the search and if we were writing a paper on cow disease, this is a possible course of action.
Now go to http://www.excite.com/
Type in the same search keywords: cow +disease -music -mad
You get different sites.
Different search engines have different pages registered and use different search protocols.
Boolean Searches
Go to the excite.com search engine - they support boolean operators
I hope you understand these terms already, but just in case, go over them quickly
1. A OR B : This will look for documents that have either A or B
2. A AND B : The documents pulled must have both terms
3. A AND NOT B : Note the phrasing, excite doesn't allow just "not" but that's what it means. No B, but A.
Now we'll do a sample search using some of this knowledge.
There's a small county in NE Missouri that used to be Clay county but is now Clinton county. They have some updates on their USGEN web site, and I want to get on that mailing list! I just can't remember the url...
In excite, let's start with the term "clinton"
Now in excite, you search, then scroll down past the directory to the web matches.
Not exactly what I want, most of this is about the president.
Let's get rid of those and see what's left: clinton AND NOT bill
Better, but there are still a few clintons.
Let's add a term: clinton AND NOT bill AND county
Well, under Web Results, we have a few clinton counties. Kentucky, Indiana, and the second one there is our precious Clinton County Missouri.
AND, OR, AND NOT -- often they have to be in caps, so it's a good habit.
Use quotes if you want to keep the term order: "ice cream"
Nested searches use parentheses: wax AND (banana OR apple)
Switch over to Yahoo.com
Yahoo does not support these terms too well, so stick with + or -
It does, however, allow these two tricks
1. title searches let you dictate a word that must be in the title
  t:albatross -- that word must be in the title
2. url searches allow you to restrict the domain
  u:jhunix -- jhunix must be in the url
3. you can combine them all -- wrestling -wcw u:wwf t:warzone
The more specific your search, the less time you'll spend going through useless, irrelevant links.

Part 1: Making the Directory

This is important.
Telnet to your jhunix account and login (if you don't have a jhunix account you'll have to publish your page on a lab machine in c:\internet_class\yourname - be sure to email the class account telling us the URL of your homework).
In your main root directory, you already have a directory called public_html
ls -l to double check its permissions: should have rx for everyone
Enter into public_html using the "cd" command
Create a new directory in public_html called complit
Give this directory read and execute permissions to everyone.
Enter this directory and hit "pwd" to make sure you're in public_html/complit
If you have problems get help from Greg or a classmate asap. It is very important that this is set up perfectly. Once in this directory, make your files. The rest of your assignments and labs will be done in this directory. If you make them in a different directory, move the files using the "mv" command.

Part 2: Searching

When you perform a web search, you type in keywords and + or - signs and press the "submit" or "enter" button. The page you see next has a list of links that go to pages containing related information. This is called a query page.
What follows is a set of instructions on 5 searches you are to perform. Be sure that your searches are narrow, not broad, and produce only a few pertinent hits. 300 hits is far too many. You will have to bookmark the query page you get to after your search. You will also have to bookmark a specific page that has the needed information.
1. Perform the searches that fit the scenarios. You must use the operators AND, OR, u:, and t:, +, - at some point. Note: you must use all of these operators for this assignment.
  Bookmark 1 query page and 1 info page.
2. Roger Sherman - US Congressman. What state did he represent?
  Perform a narrow search using + and - (do the search, if you get a lot of junk, tighten it with a - sign)
  Use either Snap.com or Excite.com
  Bookmark the query page. Pick the best link, check for the info, then bookmark that page too. (Each search gives 2 bookmarks, query page and info page)
3. What is a Bucky Ball?
  Use Yahoo.com or Lycos.com
  Bookmark final query page and actual page
4. Pick your favorite sport. Find out as much as you can about its origin.
  Use a search engine you haven't used above.
  Bookmark final query page and actual page
5. Your friend starts talking about PvP in relation to online gaming. Find out what this means.
  Use a search engine you haven't used above.
  Bookmark final query page and actual page
6. You want to find film reviews of movies that are older, not current.
  Use a search engine you haven't used above.
  Bookmark final query page and actual page
7. Don't forget: 1 query page, 1 info page (10 total bookmarks) and use all of the operators!
Now you have 10 bookmarks. Rename them to say something like: "Search 1: Sherman / Query" or "Search 2: Bucky Ball / Info" so the bookmark says what search it is and if it's info or query.
Put a separator between the searches, not between query and info
Save the bookmark file locally on the hard drive as "hw13.html"
If using a HAC or NEB computer, save it in the "TEMP" or "Save Here" directory.
Create another bookmark file with 10 yahoo shortcut searches. Call this file hw13b.html

Part 3: File Transfer Protocol (use scp)

It is rather difficult to do this particular homework out of order so if you do not have a bookmark file saved on your computer, then go to the top of the page.
View the page (remember how the url is determined?) to make sure it worked. You may or may not have to set permissions on this file, depending on whether your ftp program automatically does it or not. Always check it out. If you can't see it, I probably won't be able to.

Assignment 13: (11 pts) - nothing to turn in because it's online

complit directory in public_html
Permissions set correctly on complit directory
Roger Sherman search
Bucky Ball search
Favorite sport search
PvP search
Film reviews search
Use of all operators
hw13.html file online.
hw13b.html file online.
Searches have proper names