Discovering Discovery

Discovery: Browse

Go to the Home View with the ring of icons. Point at icons and check their names until you find Browse. Can you tell what its icon stands for? Will that help you remember which one it is?

Click it. What happens?

And after that—Hey, Google! Menus! Links! Toolbar! Tabs! Notes and questions, right?

Try a Google search. Did it work? If not, what might be wrong? What does the error message suggest?

Try a menu item. It works, even if you can't get to Google. Why is that? Hint: Point at the Navigation bar at the top, where you see the page name. What happens? Does this answer the question? Does it raise another question?

If you aren't on the Internet, you will find it helpful to go back to the Wireless Discovery, and get on the Net, if possible. Then you can explore much more widely in Browse, far beyond what this little guide can help you with. But that's all right. There are plenty of other guides to the Internet, and plenty of aids to discovering the parts you are interested in. In addition to Google, I suggest you start by looking at Wikipedia.org. Or Stumbleupon.com, which specializes in helping people find things you can't easily search for. Project Gutenberg has vast amounts of free, out-of-copyright literature and other publications. Stacy, the Librarian Chick, maintains a catalog of free digital education materials. Google will tell you where to find each of these.

You may also want to explore the social media websites for people who share your interests. I'm on several. You can check my memberships out at

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai#Contact

Now, back to Browse. Click each of the tabs, and point at each of the tools. They will tell you their names. From the icon, the name, and what happens when you click, you should get a good idea of what they are for. Are there any controls you can't click, or that you can't discover the use of?

The Undiscoverable

How about the arrow pointing down at three squares, on the View tab? I don't know what that does, either. I have only ever seen it grayed out, with no name available.

How about the Share with: menu? That's a tough one that children generally find to be Undiscoverable. You are welcome to try it, but don't be surprised if you can't make sense of it. Its effect shows up in a different view, and then, of course, if you are going to share something with other people, they have to discover that fact and do something about it themselves. We'll go through the entire process later on. What questions does that leave you with?

More generally, Browse raises the question of how the Internet works, including viewing Web pages, e-mail, uploading and downloading files, voice and video, and language support. Here are a few topics you can look up in Google or Wikipedia.

http:

https:

mailto:

ftp:

wget

torrenting

Voice over IP

Chat

Teleconferencing

The multilingual Web: character sets and fonts

Unicode

Up to now, I have had to explain any bits of The Undiscoverable that we came across. But now, with Browse, you can use Google to find out about them. All you need is a name. You don't necessarily need everything I listed above right now, but you will find it helpful to be able to find out about them at any time when the need arises.

But if you what something looks like and what it does, but don't know its name, what then? Well, firstly, Richard Feynman and his father would be proud of you. You are learning like a true scientist. Anyway, getting information on something without knowing what people call it is an important skill. Perhaps Google will tell you the name, if you put in a description. There are other ways to use the Internet to explore for things you don't know the name of, perhaps don't even know exist.

Some of the time, you can just ask somebody. Not just somebody you happen to know where you live, but somebody anywhere on the Internet. There are places for such questions, such as aardvark.com. Try it. I answer questions there, as do many others who sign up for topics they know about.