This section will help you understand common terms and tools of the internet: Pop Up Ads, Page Not Found, Web Traffic, Stuck in a Page. Also, the Conclusion.
Surfing the Web is not without some snafus. Here are a few of the aggravations and what to do about them.
Pop Up Ads
Popup Ad
Many of the irritations and aggravations are caused by aggressive marketers who want to get your eyes on their information. One popular way to invade your screen is through pop ups. Pop ups are ads that appear without your request usually on top of the information that you want to view.
You can get rid of them by simply clicking on the X in the upper right hand corner of the box containing the ad. Another kind of ad has become increasing popular: the pop under ad. While you are surfing the Web, these ads open under your browser window. You may not see them until after you close your browser, at which time you may wonder where the ad came from. Again, simply close the window and ignore it.
Pop up and pop under ads are extremely aggravating. Remember, if you respond to a pop up or pop under ad, you are letting the marketers know that they have gotten your attention. If no one ever clicked on these ads, marketers would consider them a failure, and they would quickly disappear.
Page Not Found
You are already becoming familiar with the two major characteristics of the Internet — it is mammoth and dynamic. Often the dynamic quality of the Web can be frustrating. You may have a particular site that you need to find or return to. You carefully type in the URL and click Go. There is a message that appears, "Page Not Found." The most common reason for a Page Not Found error is a typo, so first check the address that you have typed to make sure that it is a valid address with no spaces or mistakes.
Occasionally, you will get a Page Not Found error simply because of a glitch or a burp in the system. Retry the address again. If you still get an error, try again later. If, after several tries, Page Not Found still appears, the page may have been removed from the Internet or moved to a new location making it inaccessible.
Web Traffic
Sometimes a Web page becomes inaccessible simply because there are too many people trying to visit it at the same time. This happened with several news sites after the September 11th terrorist attacks. If this is the case, you may get a "Page Not Found" or other error.
Also remember that during certain times of the day, there is more traffic on the Internet, making Web sites appears more slowly. You may want to avoid surfing during the very busy early evening hours.
Stuck in a Page
Open in New Window Menu
One of the goals of every Web site is to get visitors to come to their site. Sometimes Web creators use somewhat devious tricks to keep you looking at their Web sites. You will notice that occasionally when you click on a hyperlink, instead of being transported to a new page, you see the new page appear in the framework of the old page. No matter how many links you click on, you cannot escape from the first page. Dealing with this dilemma is easy. Just right-click on a hyperlink and choose Open in New Window, and you will have broken free.
Basic Browsing – Conclusion
Congratulations! You have completed the final lesson of our Basic Browsing topic. We hope you'll visit us again in the near future as we add new and expanded topics.
If you found our lessons helpful and have friends and family who could use a helping hand on the web, you can e-mail them a link to this feature! Or, share your insights on our message boards.
And if you're raring to go try out your new web skills, check out our Computers & Technology Home Page for more great stories, how-to's, web reviews, and tech news.
Showing posts with label Basic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Basic. Show all posts
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Learning Visual Basic
Part 1: Start Here!
If you're new to Visual Basic, or even new to programming, this is the place! Visual Basic from the very ground up will be explained. Those of you who are more code-wise might find this article slightly boring from a technical perspective ... but Hey!, you're welcome here too!
The first thing you need to know, and I mean know, about programming is that it's not magic and you can do it. The people who have trouble learning to program are the ones who expect to have trouble. If you think it's going to be easy, it probably will be for you. So plan on having fun! It's the best way to learn.
The second thing is to realize is that the computer is really dumb! I mean stupid, idiotic, and just plain dense. That's why it has to be told each and every thing to do ... at some time. The TV and movie plots where the computer is this scheming, thinking, entity are completely wrong. If a computer doesn't have instructions to do something, it will not do anything. Your task as a programmer is to provide those instructions. The flip side of this is that if it's not doing what you intend, then it's because the instructions that it was given were wrong.
The main flaw in this is that YOU don't give the computer all of the instructions. It gets a lot of them from other programmers at other times in the form of software like the compiler (the program that turns a 'programming language' like Visual Basic into instructions that the computer can actually understand), the operating system (the program that turns things like your keystrokes into instructions that the computer can actually understand), and software objects (little packages of self contained program code that do things that a lot of people need). So to really understand the instructions that the computer received, you have to have an idea about what all the other instructions are. Welcome to programming!
Therefore ... our task in learning Visual Basic is to understand how Visual Basic combines with your instructions (and all the other stuff) to form a complete program.
Fortunately, Visual Basic takes care of virtually all of the details for you. But it's a good idea to know what's happening "under the covers". Here's a picture of what all this looks like.
By the way, this is usually called a 'Flow Chart'. A lot of people insist that you draw a flow chart of any program before you try to write it. It's a good idea, especially for people just starting out. But remember rule number 1: If it's not fun, don't do it.
Part 2: The Visual Basic Programming Environment
As the previous flowchart showed, you have to have the Basic software before you can complete a working program. The good news is that Microsoft does provide a first class development environment called Visual Basic Express. (You can read all about it in my complete tutorial - click here.) The bad news is that we're not going to base this tutorial on Microsoft's free system. We're going to assume that you're using Visual Basic version 6.0. More bad news is that it's becoming very difficult to actually buy a new copy of VB 6. Microsoft is doing a pretty good job of exterminating it in the retail market because you simply can't buy it from them anymore. The only copies that are available are left over from years ago. In fact, Microsoft stopped supporting it as a 'Mainstream' product in 2005.
The reason we're using VB 6.0 is first, to provide a really great VB environment. (Although Microsoft doesn't support it anymore, we do here and it is pretty great.) And second, to provide a tutorial that will match the software that a lot of people still actually use, in spite of Microsoft's position on it.
For the rest of you, make sure you have VB 6 installed and then start it up! You should see a development environment that looks something like this:
Notice that in the previous flowchart, the arrows pointed both ways from the computer to the 'operating system' and 'software libraries'. That is because you can actually make your own software modifications using VB. That's what some of the other icons are for. But for now, click the default "Standard EXE" icon and then click the "Open" button.
You should now see something that looks like this:
There are a lot of display options at this point and you might see other parts of Visual Basic on your computer such as the 'Project Explorer' window ...
... the 'Toolbox' ...
... or several other things. This leads to the next point. Your VB development environment has a lot of different components and you don't have to know what they all are right away. We're going to keep things as simple as possible and avoid discussing anything that you don't absolutely need. As you gain skill in VB, you'll figure out the new stuff.
If you're new to Visual Basic, or even new to programming, this is the place! Visual Basic from the very ground up will be explained. Those of you who are more code-wise might find this article slightly boring from a technical perspective ... but Hey!, you're welcome here too!
The first thing you need to know, and I mean know, about programming is that it's not magic and you can do it. The people who have trouble learning to program are the ones who expect to have trouble. If you think it's going to be easy, it probably will be for you. So plan on having fun! It's the best way to learn.
The second thing is to realize is that the computer is really dumb! I mean stupid, idiotic, and just plain dense. That's why it has to be told each and every thing to do ... at some time. The TV and movie plots where the computer is this scheming, thinking, entity are completely wrong. If a computer doesn't have instructions to do something, it will not do anything. Your task as a programmer is to provide those instructions. The flip side of this is that if it's not doing what you intend, then it's because the instructions that it was given were wrong.
The main flaw in this is that YOU don't give the computer all of the instructions. It gets a lot of them from other programmers at other times in the form of software like the compiler (the program that turns a 'programming language' like Visual Basic into instructions that the computer can actually understand), the operating system (the program that turns things like your keystrokes into instructions that the computer can actually understand), and software objects (little packages of self contained program code that do things that a lot of people need). So to really understand the instructions that the computer received, you have to have an idea about what all the other instructions are. Welcome to programming!
Therefore ... our task in learning Visual Basic is to understand how Visual Basic combines with your instructions (and all the other stuff) to form a complete program.
Fortunately, Visual Basic takes care of virtually all of the details for you. But it's a good idea to know what's happening "under the covers". Here's a picture of what all this looks like.
By the way, this is usually called a 'Flow Chart'. A lot of people insist that you draw a flow chart of any program before you try to write it. It's a good idea, especially for people just starting out. But remember rule number 1: If it's not fun, don't do it.
Part 2: The Visual Basic Programming Environment
As the previous flowchart showed, you have to have the Basic software before you can complete a working program. The good news is that Microsoft does provide a first class development environment called Visual Basic Express. (You can read all about it in my complete tutorial - click here.) The bad news is that we're not going to base this tutorial on Microsoft's free system. We're going to assume that you're using Visual Basic version 6.0. More bad news is that it's becoming very difficult to actually buy a new copy of VB 6. Microsoft is doing a pretty good job of exterminating it in the retail market because you simply can't buy it from them anymore. The only copies that are available are left over from years ago. In fact, Microsoft stopped supporting it as a 'Mainstream' product in 2005.
The reason we're using VB 6.0 is first, to provide a really great VB environment. (Although Microsoft doesn't support it anymore, we do here and it is pretty great.) And second, to provide a tutorial that will match the software that a lot of people still actually use, in spite of Microsoft's position on it.
For the rest of you, make sure you have VB 6 installed and then start it up! You should see a development environment that looks something like this:
Notice that in the previous flowchart, the arrows pointed both ways from the computer to the 'operating system' and 'software libraries'. That is because you can actually make your own software modifications using VB. That's what some of the other icons are for. But for now, click the default "Standard EXE" icon and then click the "Open" button.
You should now see something that looks like this:
There are a lot of display options at this point and you might see other parts of Visual Basic on your computer such as the 'Project Explorer' window ...
... the 'Toolbox' ...
... or several other things. This leads to the next point. Your VB development environment has a lot of different components and you don't have to know what they all are right away. We're going to keep things as simple as possible and avoid discussing anything that you don't absolutely need. As you gain skill in VB, you'll figure out the new stuff.
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