Keeping Up To Date

The Internet is a vast source of current information that can be very helpful for you to keep up to date with what is going on in the world around you. This section will list a few of the sites I use to keep up to date with this information. You should realize that there are many more sites out there. You can use whichever one you wish. For simplicity sake, I am only going to tell you about one site devoted to each topic. Don't assume that these are the best sites; they are just the ones that I am telling you about. They are at least among the best sites out there for the information that they give.

Computer News

CNET

The CNET site, in combination with it's own News.com site, seems to be one of the most complete computer news resources on the Internet. It is also setup in a very user-friendly manner because its target audience is novice users, such as yourself. The great advantage of CNET over other news sites is that it has stuff besides computer news. It has files you can download and many, many other features that would probably interest you. All and all, CNET is one of the best sites on the planet for computers in general. It also does a terrific job in the subcategory of computer news.

Stock News

Yahoo Finance

Now it is debatable whether or not Yahoo Finance is the best stock news site. There are so many other sites out there that produce stock news. The only advantage Yahoo has is that it links all of the other site's content. By looking for news about a stock on the Yahoo site, you will be shown the news on many other news sites. Yahoo seems to be great at linking other resources to make its own site better. That is why it is the best informational news site. However, it is not the easiest to use, or even anywhere near easy for that manner.

CBS MarketWatch

CBS MarketWatch has a ton of information, but nowhere near as much as Yahoo. In fact, all of MarketWatch's stories are linked on Yahoo. However, MarketWatch does have a great deal of valuable information. It also is very easy to use when compared to Yahoo. It has commentaries and other stuff that you will not find on Yahoo (well written by Yahoo at least). It is also organized more like a news site than a search engine. This makes it far easier to use and far easier to find information that you might not be looking for. MarketWatch is actually probably the better site for novices, but for people who want to be immersed in information from many different sources, Yahoo is the site for them.

Using Search Engines Properly

The proper use of search engines will allow you to find the results you are looking for very quickly. I will only discuss the three search engines I use in this section. Be aware that there are many others others out there.

Yahoo

The first search you do on the Internet should be the search least likely to find information but most likely to find exactly the information you are looking for. This is exactly what Yahoo does. Yahoo does a search of web page descriptions, not the actual information on the web page. This will allow you to find exactly the web page that you are looking for. Odds are that web pages will have a lot of information on them that is not related to their main subject. Yahoo can weed out these sites. If Yahoo finds the site that you are looking for, then you are done. However, Yahoo is the least likely search engine to have the information you want. You might have to move onto one of the other search engines.

Google & Altavista

The reason that both search engines are listed as one step is because whichever one you choose depends on what you are searching for. If you are searching for something like a file name or a part number, you will probably want to use Altavista. Odds are that you will find exactly what you are looking for very easily.

However, if you are searching for a phrase of words in which each word seems like it might be on a lot of web pages but the specific phrase or group of words would not be on many web pages, you probably want to use Google. At the Google search prompt, do not simply type in your words and hit search. What you want to do is put the word AND between each word you type in. This will lead you to only the pages containing all of the words that you typed in. You could also further narrow your search by putting quotes (" ") around a group of words that is an exact phrase you are looking for (such as a name). Remember to take out the AND between words inside quotes because the words inside quotes will only be found if that exact phrase is there. Odds are that people don't write their name First AND Last. If you did not find the information that you are looking for with Google, you will probably want to move onto Altavista as a last resort. If you cannot find the information with all these search engines, then odds are what you are seeking is not on the web (or is hidden very well).

It is worth noting that almost all search engines can do stuff like putting quotes around phrases and putting ands between words. You probably want to check out the search engine's help section to find the methods for doing such things. Odds are it will greatly increase your search ability, as it will hone in on exactly what you are looking for.