The main reasons people use the Internet are as follow:
To get information
To send information
To conduct business
To keep up with family and friends
To meet people
To get software
To play games
To buy products
Sex
If your purpose is to get information, a very helpful tool for you is a search engine. Some are true search engines and others are databases collected and maintained by humans. Some sources are more relevant than others.
What kind of information are you looking for? Yahoo, Mamma, Lycos, Excite, and HotBot are the best sources in finding what you need. Yahoo is by far the most popular.
When using a search engine, you can enter a few words or even just one word describing what you are looking for. The more words you use, the more likely a search engine is to narrow your search.
For instance, if you type "mlm" or "multilevel marketing", you will literally get thousands of web sites listed. If you were just doing research on how mlm works, you would be disappointed to find the majority of those listed would be to recruit you into one of many of the hundreds of programs available. You would have a better search if you type in "making a multilevel marketing company" or "creating an mlm business". This would lead you to fewer sites, but more relevant to what you are searching.
Give this example a try. Type in a few keywords of what you want to find in the box below. Hit the button and you will be directed to a page of closely matching web sites that might have what you need.
The most search engines cannot physically check to verify the keywords match up to the site. For instance, some sites may enter their web site with keywords such as sex when in fact they sell microwave ovens. If you type in sex as a search term and you go to a site that offers microwave ovens, you are not likely to buy one if your mind is on sex.
Due to some of the misleading keywords in search engines, this is one of the main reasons you will want to supervise children who web surf. They may go to a search engine to research "biology" and get a sex education of the most inappropriate type.
If the information you seek is about people, you can find out someone's address, phone number, and e-mail address online. You can even print out a map to someone's home.
Big Book is a good source for finding US businesses.
Big Yellow is also a good source for finding businesses, but on an international level.
Bigfoot, Four11, and WhoWhere? are sources to find out someone's e-mail address.
Yahoo has a yellow page for businesses, white pages for people and can print a map for both.
You can find out other personal information if you are that ambitious, but I won't give out that information. Some things like social security numbers, medical records, and so forth are really no one's business. It is available and you would be naive to think someone cannot find out such personal stuff about you, but I am not about to teach anyone to do that.
Just think of this resource, the world wide web, as the greatest library in the world. Any topic, any subject, anything you can conceive is most likely somewhere online.
Also, remember, these sites are done by humans. Don't take everything you read as the gospel truth! There will be mistakes and misquotes on some sites. Some are prone to exaggerations and outright lies. Some who design web sites are total lunatics.
Be sure when you do your search that you check with other sources that can back up any claims made. It is best to look up several sites to compare notes. If you take everything you read as the end all truth and go off spouting what may be a hoax, you will look rather silly in the end.
There are many fine and informative web sites available by professionals and hobbyist who have worked long and hard to give the surfer the best information and references and give them what they came to see. You just have to watch out for the bad seeds mixed in the crowd.
