Libre Software and Libre Knowledge in Education

Web browsing and Web Feeds for windows Users

Christopher Harvey

Brisbane, Qld 4151
Australia

Copyright Notice

This document may used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or higher. (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this document provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this document under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this document into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that this permission notice may be included in translations approved by the Free Software Foundation instead of in the original English.

Thanks to Joe Crawford for the cover image. He is a web designer and developer who co-founded http://crawberts.com/ and he lives in Simi Valley, California. You can find out more about him at http://artlung.com/

Libre Learning Objects

Table of Contents

Overview of Web browsing and Web Feeds for windows Users

What we need
Installing Firefox
Web browsing and search
Web browsing and Web Feeds
Notes From the Author
Links

Overview of Web browsing and Web Feeds for windows Users

This guide will teach you how to use your web browser to search, collect and manage knowledge and information.

One of the main issues covered in this guide is how to use web feeds or you may have heard this described as how to subscribe to web feeds or news feeds.

For the guide we will just keep it simple, there are other options that you can use depending on your situation. I've included links in the section called Links mainly listing free online web hosting services for people interested in managing their work online.

Like this guide, Wikipedia is Libre knowledge and contains the most accurate and up to date information available on the internet and links to the most relevant resources. Libre knowledge implies freedom to read, listen to, watch, or otherwise experience explicit knowledge to learn from, copy, adapt and use it for any purpose; contribute new insights and share these for the common good; and all of this with free software.

Links for further study:

Terminology: Web browser, Tabbed Browsing, Web syndication, Live bookmarking, Web application, Web 2.0

Libre Software: Firefox List of Firefox extensions

Technical Information: Open standard, Cross-platform The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), RSS Atom

What we need

The essentials:

A computer running windows
An Internet connection

When downloading software its always best to have the latest stable version, below are links to the versions used in this guide and links to the homepages so that you can check that your using the best version, learn about the programmers and find more valuable information and tutorials. Most of the software has a feature that you can run to check for the latest version.

Download this Software:

Firefox Download (1.5.0.1), Firefox Homepage

Installing Firefox

Go to where you downloaded Firefox and double click the Firefox Setup 1.5.0.1.exe.
Select Next.
Agree with the terms of the License.
Select Standard.
Read the summary and select next.
Set up the shortcuts you want and select next.
Installation complete, select finish.

Web browsing and search

Double-click the Firefox desktop shortcut to start Firefox. A window will appear asking to set Firefox as the default browser, select yes. You can always use slower,insecure, malware internet explorers through the start menu if you must use them.
Welcome to Firefox. This page contains an extensive list of options for customizing your web browser.
Lets start by adding a search engine. Select the G in the top right hand corner of your browser and select Add Engines...
You will see a page listing search engines, select Wikipedia
A confirmation box will appear, select OK
Search is usually the first place you start when locating information. Here you see our updated search options.

Right click on any hyperlink and select Open Link in New Tab. Tabbed browsing is a useful habit to develop. It's more efficient than trying to manage multiple windows.

Web browsing and Web Feeds

Select the bookmarks tab and then Manage Boolmarks...
Select New Folder and give it a name and description
Drag the new folder onto the Bookmarks Toolbar section like in the screenshot
When you visit a site with a web feed available you will see an orange icon appear beside the URL. Move your mouse over the icon and you will see the option to Add Live Bookmark
Click on the icon and you will see the available web feeds, select Add "Whats New" as Live Bookmark.

You may have heard this described as subscribing to a web feed or news feed.
Change the name if you prefer and make sure the Live Bookmark folder we created earlier is selected and select OK.
Some pages contain large lists of web feeds, look for the xml, rss or atom icon or option and right click on it and select Copy Link Location.
Select the bookmarks tab > Manage Boolmarks > File > New Live Bookmark.
Enter a name and then right click on the Feed Location text area and select paste, enter a description and select OK.
Now left-click on the Live Bookmarks option on your toolbar, select one of the Live Bookmarks you added and the latest headlines will be loaded and displayed. You can then right click on the article that interests you and open it in a new tab.

It's all about saving time and viewing periodic updates of additions to the web sites of your choice.

Some sites have multiple web feeds that make it easy to keep up with the latest developments.

Notes From the Author

This guide was created using a free/libre operating system known as GNU/Linux using free/libre software. I need your feedback, so please do me a favour and send me some comments. If your keen to re-write this guide just contact me instead, I'm currently looking for work in education.