Getting started
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You've found a site which contains information which you find extremely useful, but do you have to return to the site everytime you need to reference the information? No! A little known feature of most browsers is the ability to load and view web pages offline.While you can view a web page offline, you need to reconstruct directory structure, with all of the associated graphics, or else you won't see the graphics for the page. With that in mind, here are some the steps you would need to save this page and view it offline in Netscape Navigator .Click on File Menu Select the option Save as. Save the file, but remember the file name! This will allow you to save the file to your local hard drive in a place other than the cache directory. The cache directory is used by the browser to speed loading of the web sites if you make a return visit, but you are not assured that the files will be safe there as the browsers periodically clean out the cache directory to prevent it from growing too large. Normally the files are named using a four character extension (.html), but for a windows 3.11 or MSDOS environment, it should be shortened to .htm In the case of browsers, the program will know, and use the file name under which it was stored on the remote system.
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Once you are disconnected from the internet, activate your browser, if your browser complains about it being activated without a network connection, then your browser lacks the capability of displaying offline web files. Not to worry , you can always download the Netscape Navigator software program.
This shareware program allows you to view web files offline. You can download the file from Netscapes web site, Once your browser is active, follow these steps for offline viewing of the files you have saved.Netscape Navigator Click on the Open File. menu option under the ;File menu and move to the appropriate directory where you saved the html file. Select the file that you wish to view from the list supplied and it will appear in the main display window. Click on the ;File menu and select the Open. option. Move to the appropriate directory. Select the file you wish to view. With the file loaded into the browser, you can do almost all of the same things as you do when you are online, but you should exercise caution when trying to access something via a hyper-text link on an offline page since, you probably don't have those html files saved as well. While you won't cause any damage, either to your system or to the saved document, you will not be able to see pages via a hyper-link if you did not first save them.
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You've found a picture of the most beautiful girl in the world, or just a photo of your favorite camping/vacation spot, did you know you can save that image on your computer, maybe even use it for a Windows background?
It's not hard to save a graphic file that loaded with a page. It does help to understand a little about the process of loading a web page into your computer first. Your browser takes the html file, which is usually all text and loads it into it's memory. The html file is a text file containing text commands which instruct the browser on how to display the file. Basically the browser reads the html file after loading it, locating all the commands to load graphics, retrieves the graphics from the server, then assembles the web page by combining the graphics and the text contained in the html file. In essence, all these graphics you are seeing, are loaded into your computer already!The real trick, and it's not really a trick, is moving the graphic image from one directory to another. Netscape Navigator users have it easy, the designers of Navigator foresaw the desire to easily save graphics. To save a graphic under Netscape's Navigator; Position the cursor over the image and click on the right mouse button, Click on Save as ,Enter an appropriate file name for the image and select which directory you want to save the image to . Click on the OK button.
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Downloading software is going to consume a significant portion of your online time. Whether it's getting new software, or upgrades, or just obtaining demo copies of the latest programs,everyone needs to know how to download.
It's a sound idea, before you begin, to create a directory or folder and call it ;Downloads. This way you will never have to scramble to figure out where to put a file you want to get from the net. Additionally, if you always save the downloaded files in the same directory, then removing them will be easier since they are all in one location on your harddrive.
The biggest problem with downloading software is that often many people do not realize that once the file is loaded onto the computer, it almost always requires additional steps before you can use the software. The process of downloading and using a downloaded program follows these basic steps, regardless of the program doing the download.
Downloading Instructions
Download the file into your Download; Directory. Disconnect from the network. Using your file manager, locate and enter the\download directory. Find the file which you downloaded and Execute it. (This can be done by using the File Run Command, or simply double-clicking on the file name. Follow the installation instructions provided by the program. IMPORTANT NOTE!! While most sites have clean software, sometimes you may run accross files which are infected with a computer virus. You should have a decent Virus Checker program, one which is capable of scanning compressed archives and run it against every program you download before actually running the program. Rules for telling what type of file you are about to download. If the file name ends in .exe or .com, the file is either uncompressed or it is a self-extracting file. If the file name ends in .zip, .arc, .arj the file is compressed to conserve both disk space and transmission time and therefore needs a compression utility like PKware's PKZIP or WinZip.