Untangling the Web

Maybe you have overheard those computer junkies who travel that mysterious superhighway of the Internet--the ones who sound so smug and sophisticated talking about their high-speed modems and gigabytes galore.

Try traveling that road yourself and you might quit snickering. It’s no easy matter when that blue globe quits whirling every time you try to hitch a ride. So you ditch the manuals, try the “Dummies” books and still can’t get past e-mail for an online chat with Oprah.

In fact, you can’t even retrieve an April Fool’s greeting from your tax preparer without stumbling into an alphabet soup of http’s and www’s.

So where’s a cyber-dropout to go but the Computer Idiot Training Center in Ventura, where the welcome mat is out, no questions asked? Just like home.

A free two-hour session on a Wednesday evening hooks you. Where else can you learn to race a search engine named Yahoo without a driver’s license? Or browse through countrywide Yellow Pages looking for your third-grade love?

Other students have more practical goals, like the woman who hopes to keep track of her college-bound daughter via e-mail and minus phone bills. Medical news and desert tortoises are other topical quests.

The instructor, revealing her own interest, produces a wide-screen shot of Mel Gibson. So, OK, you’d rather check out Paul Newman and his saucy sauces. In that case, it’s time to sign up for a Saturday class on “Introduction to the Internet” and learn to do your own searches.

On a Saturday morning you sit with fellow idiot classmates, each at a computer, while instructor Todd Hess stands next to an oversize monitor suspended from the ceiling. Each monitor displays west.net, the service providing Internet connection.

Fidgeting with the keyboard, adrenaline pumping like an Indy 500 racer, you are more than ready to start your search engine. In this case, these are basically robots programmed to find topics related to words you type into a box. The challenge is knowing which words to enter. Otherwise, you’re lost in cyberspace.

Before hitting the keys, Hess recounts the history of the Internet. The class is more eager for hands-on browsing than learning that the military started the movement driven by the need to transfer information through a network. Or that government and universities jumped on the bandwagon.

Because everything then was text-based, a couple of professors jazzed up the screen in the ‘80s by creating a graphics-based browser.

Interesting background, but you can’t help thinking that a printed handout to the class would suffice.

Finally, the green light. From bare-bones beginners to frustrated failures, everyone has different goals. One married couple has enrolled to explore her horizons and his investment plans. Travel dreamers search for cheap air fares to exotic places. A father is an Anglophile, his son interested in games and art. The father finds the London Times. Sounds like a good idea, so you hunt up your hometown newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, feeling smug.

To the uninitiated, Internet basics begin with a service provider--you can’t leave home for cyberspace without one. Pay a monthly access fee and you’re free to use those browser/search engines with peculiar names such as Infoseek, Yahoo, Excite, HotBot and Webcrawler. Metacrawler even searches the search engines. Yahoo and Excite seem to promise fun, but Webcrawler sounds sneaky. Wonder what HotBot promises.

America Online, MSN and AT&T; providers package added features for monthly fees, while west.net and others offer basic access without the bells and whistles, also for a fee. Juno gives you straight access and no fee.

If you’re into bells and whistles, though, pay AOL to deliver your e-mail and hear a computerized “goodbye” when you sign off. Of course, once you venture into cyberspace, chat rooms and online shopping beckon. They’re hard to resist.

Hopping from one site to another turns out to be easy when you learn to click on the “back” icon. Akin to scattering crumbs along the forest path, you’re steered safely back home. Using the “bookmark” function accomplishes the same thing, returning you directly to a site you enjoyed.

It’s a handy feature when you find an article in the Chicago Tribune about Jensen Park, that suburban neighborhood where you learned to ice skate hand-in-hand with that cute third-grader. “Bookmark” the site, and a trip to nostalgia is at your fingertips.

Another Internet plus for news addicts is having round-the-clock world news at the click of a cursor. So, while computer-illiterate family members watch nonstop news on TV, you casually stroll by to announce that the Russian ruble just went south. Heard it hot from Reuters’ hourly wire services. A true scoop.

Not only that, with daily summaries of all the soaps, no need to tape “All My Children.” Erica Kane is just a few keystrokes away.

Which brings up “newsgroups,” a glorified message board where you find topics of interest, sign on and read unedited, unmonitored comments from other subscribers throughout the Internetliterally millions of users. Now you can post your own uncensored comments to be read by faceless viewers. With thousands of topics, you can learn something, spout off and duck behind your screen name in perfect anonymity. Unlike conversation, none of this occurs in live time.

Chat rooms are another story, happening in the moment. But how does a timid soul know when to jump in? And who are all these people cluttering up megabytes with chitchat? Don’t you wonder if they’re yakking it up while some lonely housemate is pining away down the hall, starved for attention? Still, for some, it could be the most creative marriage saver since dual-control electric blankets.

Meanwhile, the class winds down and Hess connects to the L.L. Bean catalog to demonstrate online shopping and look for his favorite moccasins. Then, on to a brief overview of downloading, which defies reasoning. That uploading means you are the sender and downloading means you’re on the receiving end of files or other information seems topsy-turvy.

But then, what isn’t, in this wide, wide world of the Internet where you’ve learned much more than you ever expected?

BE THERE

“Introduction to the Internet,” 9 a.m.-noon, Sept. 12. and again on Oct. 3 Cost: $79. Computer Idiot Training Center, 2734 Johnson Drive, Ventura; (805) 650-5981. E-mail: https://www.pcidiot.com.

“Internet Fundamentals” are offered Saturdays from 12-2 p.m. through jetlink.com, 1495 Palma Drive, Ventura. No fee, just show up. (805) 658-3600.