Do you think you are getting the most out of Netscape? Would you like to advance your Web skills by knowing how to use the Netscape browser to better capacity? If so, now is the time to acquaint yourself with some of Netscape's features. You may find that you will appreciably enhance your Internet experience.

Let's begin by using Netscape 3.0 on one of the Sun workstations found in any of the University Libraries. You should familiarize yourself with the useful buttons on the tool bar toward the top of your page. You may click on the Back or Forward buttons to move quickly to previous screens. If you wish to return directly to the Libraries main page, just click on the Home button. Click on the Reload button if your screen is incomplete or on the Image button if the images are muddled. The Open button allows you to type a URL and move directly to that site. The Stop button quickly permits you to halt the loading of a site.

The Find button is one of the most powerful, yet often underused, features on the Netscape tool bar. Once you have already located an Internet site, the Find button will locate any word or phrase within the site. It will search the entire page for you, stopping at the first instance of the word and continues searching each time you click on Find. It will also indicate when it cannot find the word at all.

For example, let's say that you visit the Voice of the Shuttle's Cultural Studies Page (http://humanitas.ucsb.edu/shuttle/cultural.html), but are interested only in African-related sites. First click on Find, and next type africa. Click on the Find button on the lower left portion of the new window. The first instance of the word "Africa" or words such as "African" or "Africans" will then be highlighted on the page. Keep clicking on Find (or hit the Return key) if you wish to see subsequent occurrences of the word. For best results, use roots of words. The use of uppercase is optional. (You may wish to drag the Find window to a convenient corner of your screen to have a full view of the file you are reading.) What a highly effective means to review with great speed and efficiency large pages for terms, people, or places!

When using Netscape 3.0 in your office or at home, there are other useful areas to consult as well. The Help area located in the very top menu bar can provide you with such features as a detailed explanatory handbook, information about plug-ins and a compilation of frequently asked questions.

Another area worthy of investigating is the Bookmarks area of the menu bar. Not only may you add any Internet sites you encounter and wish to consult later, but you may also arrange them into a folder filing system of your own devising.

Should you like to consult a helpful online guide, visit the Undergraduate Library's Internet guide to using Netscape (http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/ugl/intguides/netscape.html).

The compelling attractions of the Internet itself might cause you to overlook some of Netscape's features. Whether you're surfing, searching or delving into Web site creation, using the full extent of Netscape can markedly improve your web proficiency.

For assistance in connecting to the World Wide Web via UB computer accounts, contact the ASCIT Help Desk at 645-3542.

-Deborah Husted Koshinsky and Rick McRae, University Libraries