Copyright © 2002, 2000 by Michael
Segers, All rights reserved
Recently,
I’ve helped several people with some ideas and information about the Internet.
These are not ideas that I’ve found in books but ideas that have come to me,
sometimes very late at night, as I’ve sat at my computer, rambling around
cyber-space. Since it occurred to me that I might have an article in the making,
I began jotting down the bits of wisdom I had shared, and they coincidentally
numbered ten. I’m avoiding the temptation of casting these thoughts in
pseudo-King-James language ("Thou shalt not…"), and I don’t
consider these to be great ethical teachings, just simple rules to enhance your
use and enjoyment of the Internet.
1.
Don’t let your mind go off-line just because your
computer is on-line. This is the first and greatest commandment. We used
to call computers "electronic brains," but the truth is, you provide
the brain and the heart for that piece of machinery. Your computer cannot
do anything that you cannot do.
2.
Don’t be afraid of the Internet. You can’t
hurt it, and it can’t hurt you. Again, though, see the first commandment.
3.
Be afraid of the other people online with you, or at
least, be careful. Don’t give out your address, telephone number, and
other personal information to strangers, strangers that you meet at a bar or in
an Internet chat room. Even if you are subscribing or registering with a
legitimate business, do you think that that business really needs your telephone
number?
4.
Don’t let the computer be an electronic babysitter,
any more than you would let the television be an electronic babysitter. It is a
good idea to have the computer in a family area, not in your child’s bedroom,
so that you can share your child's Internet experience.
5.
Learn how to use the search engine of your choice, including
the effects of punctuation marks in the entry that you type. The two best-known
search engines [as of 2000] are at www.altavista.com
and www.yahoo.com.
6.
Save your favorite sites (Explorer) or bookmarks
(Netscape). They aren’t as easy to get back to as you think.
7.
Remember that just because you read something on the
Internet, it is not necessarily true. The Internet is a great source of
information, but it is also a great source of misinformation.
8.
Remember that any "dot com" site is
commercial. The business of the Internet is business. See number seven.
9.
Don’t think that you have to forward every list of 100
uses for lawyers’ dead cats that anyone sends you. If you get something
that says "Send this to five people in the next twenty-four hours, and you
will win the state lottery," do not send it to me.
Similarly, if you get a message saying that you will win a free trip to Disney
World, clothing from the Gap, or large amounts of money for forwarding the
message, it is a hoax, an old hoax, so the best thing to do is to delete it.
9a.
If you must forward something, please use the Cut and
Paste functions to create a new document. Most of your friends do not
need to get all those e-mail addresses. For all you know, the list might end up
at the computer of someone who might want to publicize a pornographic site. Now,
do you really want Aunt Edna’s e-address to fall into such hands?
10.
Share your Internet successes and failures with mike@peanut.org.
Now,
if you obey these ten commandments, you deserve ten rewards, so here goes—
And
to begin with, you get a bonus. So many government acronyms that you know are
the basis for "dot gov" sites. Consider these:
www.irs.gov
(Internal Revenue Service)
www.nasa.gov
(National Aeronautical and Space Administration)
www.osha.gov
(Occupational Safety and Health Administration)
www.usda.gov
(United States Department of Agriculture)
www.usps.gov
(United States Postal Service)
Cyberspace
has a lot of wide open space that is hard to find your way around around. A
manageable way to deal with the Internet is http://about.com.
Once you get oriented to the alphabetical index and the search engine, you’ll
find that About.com is limited in size but not in quality.
Another
great way to get a handle on the Internet is "Access," the
Sunday supplement to many newspapers around the country. If you do not get the
paper version of this in your newspaper, you can find it online, with all its
great articles and lists of articles. [2002 update:
Unfortunately, Access no longer exists, in print or online.]
We
don’t live by the Internet alone. We sometimes need a little television. Enter
your zip code at this site, and you’ll get a listing of programs available
from your local cable provider. Since this site saves your zip code in a cookie,
you can get your local television schedule whenever you want it:
I
referred to two search engines in the "commandments." Here is a new
kid on the search engine block which is getting a lot of attention and traffic:
Since
half of my raves are about movies, let me suggest you check out the best
Internet site for film lovers, the Internet Movie Database:
For
other kinds of reference, you can access the Encyclopedia Britannica online:
Do
some good while online. If you log onto the Hunger Site, its sponsors will
donate food to fight world hunger:
There
are many great kid-friendly sites. Here is one with great graphics and links to
other equally kid-friendly sites:
For
the best place on the Internet to keep your feet dry and your heart full of
noble thoughts, check out the first and finest—and still the only—community
freenet in Georgia:
Rovin' on the Internet: Online Adventures