How do I find information on the Net?

Regardless of what you need to know, it's likely that the answer lies somewhere on the Net. Exactly where is the trick. The Internet is vast but compared to traditional information systems it's almost totally without structure. The Net has been likened to a massive library in which all the books are out of order.

What you need is a savvy librarian who has read every one of those books and knows exactly where in that mess they are to be found.

That's where you connect to a 'search engine'. These are highly specialised Web pages that have indexed the contents of most other Web pages into a huge database. Enter the word or phrase you're seeking and the search engine will consult its database and return a list of all pages where that word or phrase appears, along with the pages' title and a summary of its contents. The rest of the work -- visiting each page to find the information you need -- is up to you.

There are several ways to make your search more efficient and to find exactly what you're looking for. We've detailed these strategies at PC User Online (www.pcuser.com.au).