My First Experience with Netscape

Section 1

Week 1

August 30, 1995

Reynilda Cortez

Psychology 409

Dr. Leon James


Section 2

Self-Assessment Ratings

How difficult was this weeks task?
Very Easy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very Hard
This weeks ratings = 1

How much negative emothion did it cost you, all in all?
Very Litle 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very Much
This weeks rating = 1

How valuable for later use is this knowledge or skill going to be for you?
Not Useful 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very Useful
This weeks ratings = 10

How likely, is it that you'll be getting good at this weeks tasks?
Nott likely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Quite Likely
This weeks ratings = 9

How satisfied are you with the computer and Internet system?
Not satisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very Satisfied
This weeks ratings = 10

How hard did you try to get through this weeks tasks?
Gave up easily 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Refuse to give up
This weeks ratings = 10


Section 3


Using Netscape for the first time was not as difficult as I thought it would d be. Alll the commands were on the screen. Some of the commands were Internet Directories, Net Search, Cool Stuff, What's New, Stop and Back. Having these commands on the main screen made it easy to find what I was looking for.

According to my ratings I did not have a difficult time with this weeks task. I thought that it was fairly easy because the command buttons that we are suppose to become familiar with were on the main page. Having the command buttons on the front screen was very helpful. I did not have any negative emotions toward this weeks task. I found it to be very interesting because I heard of Netscape before, but never had the chance to see what it was all about. Doing this weeks task will be very helpful for later use. For example, I have learned that there are thousands of different information that will be available for me thorough Netscape.

Subtask

I notice that the subtasks had some kind of significance to it. Subtasks were the things that we were assigned to look up. The first tasks was to explore the directory. I clicked onto Internet Directories. This showed other ways to get at a topic without searching for a subject heading. Then I clicked onto Yahoo Directories. This directory contained 44,000 entries. Wow, that's a lot of information. Yahoo also offers a listing of the most popular pages.

The next subtask that I investigated was the search command. I clicked on the buttom Netsearch. Netsearch has a set of engines that will try to find a particular site or document on the Internet.

There was another site that had more documents. It was under What's Cool. I clicked onto that and it listed a lot of sites that were eye catching. For example, I looked at the site Entertainment and it sowed me so many thins that dealt with entertainment. It listed subjects form Art to Whale Watching.

Antoher Subtask that listed cool stuff was the command What's New. It basically showed me a list of new subjects that were on the Net. This portion was updated often because there was a sign that said "updated August 21". I thought that it was a good idea to update new documents, because many people are constantly looking for new information.

The last two commands that I had to explore were the Stop and Back buttons. I noticed that the Stop button stops the Netscape form searching the location that I asked to open. All I had to do was open a location and whem the red light turned on I would press the Stop button and it automatically stopped searching. I found that the Stop button was very useful. I would use the Stop buttom most of the time because it took too long to load up the locations that I asked to open.

The back button was the last subtask that was listed on our assignment. I wish that it was listed in the middle so I wouldn't have wasted all my time earlier. Basically, this command took me to the previous pages that I have explored earlier. After fooling around with that button I noticed the Forward button next to it. I thought that if the Back button would bring me back to previous pages, the Forward button would bring me back to the following page.

Fosillized Error

Although it seems that I was not having any trouble with the commands that we had to explore, I observed that I was commiting a fossilized error. I would not press the Back command when I wanted to view the previous page. Instead of pressing the Back command I would press the subject that I was exploring. For example, I was exploring Internet Directories. I picked the Art Category under the Directories, then it showed me a list of subjects dealing with art. I looked up Children. This featured children arts on the Web. When I wanted to get back to the previous page I didn't know how to get there so I pressed Internet Directories and started all over again. My error was easy to overcome, because one I knew what the command (Back) was for I used it constantly. The Back command saves me a lot of time.

After being on the Netscape for two hours I notice I had become familiar with the commands. The commands were similar to each other. The only difference is that it contains different subjects. For example, the command What's New basically shows a list of all the new subjects on the Net, and the command What's Cool shows a list of chosen information that was interesting. I especially enjoyed searching through the Conclusion

In whole I believe that my first experience with Netscape was successful. I got to explor the different commands of the Netscape. These commands contains many information about everything a person can think about. Hopefully, the next time I use the Netscape I will find something new that I can use for future tasks.

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