The Internet has made it possible for all kinds of people to share and publish information. Now anyone can set up a website and make known their knowledge, opinions, and feelings about a particular subject, or about life in general. Blogs (short for “web logs”) are online journals that contain regular updates (similar to diary entries, but written to be read immediately by others). They are usually the work of a single person, but a blog can also be a group activity.
Blogs vary massively in ambition and quality. The best political sites, for example, are almost like newspapers. Some bloggers use the medium to bypass state censors in oppressive countries, or to draw attention to a particular cause. But most blogs are an expression of the blogger’s daily life or less urgent concerns, or are an outlet for a hobby or leisure interest.
All bloggers, whatever their theme, want readers, and so they encourage people to sign up to receive the updates, and to post comments below the blog post. There may be videos and images as well as articles, and you can usually search old blog posts as well as the most recent ones. A blog that consists entirely or mostly of video is termed a “vlog.” Most blogs links to other blogs or websites with similar themes—so they are a way of keeping up with what people are saying or thinking on a particular subject.
Popular blogging services include WordPress, Tumblr, and Blogger. You can use these websites to find bloggers that you are interested in, or to set up a blog of your own for free.
How do I get the online version of a magazine?
If you’re using an iPhone or an iPad, you will already have the Apple Newsstand app. Open the app, and touch the Store button. You will be taken to a page where you can download the sample version of any magazine that is on sale. Once downloaded, each magazine or newspaper is displayed as an icon on the app’s “bookshelves.” The front cover of the latest edition of each magazine will automatically be shown, and a notification alerts you whenever a new issue is published and new content is available. To get the whole edition, you tap on the cover, and proceed as if you were buying a new app (see here for advice on how to do this).
If you have an Android device, then you will find Newsstand in the Google Play Store, which works in a similar way. Next Issue—available on Windows 8 smartphones and tablets, as well as on iPhones, iPads and Android devices—is another app that helps you to find, download, and manage subscription content.
What about sports? Can I find the latest results online?
You certainly can. Just as with the latest news headlines, you’ll be able to find up-to-the minute sports news online, including live text commentary and video footage. Services such as Yahoo! Sports and ESPN ScoreCenter mean that you will never miss a goal, run, or race—and you’ll be able to watch video footage of game highlights (and in some cases watch the event live).
Where’s the best place to find other sports information?
As well as current news stories and the latest fixtures and results, the official web page of a sport’s governing body or a major competition—such as the NFL, NBA, NHL, or the International Olympic Committee—usually provides a comprehensive resource on anything you could ever want to know about that sport, including archives of previous news headlines and features, historical records and results, and photo and video galleries of past competitions and events.
Most sports teams—from the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team and the New York Yankees baseball team to a local bowling league—now have their own websites and Twitter accounts where you can keep up to date.
I want to know the news as soon as it happens. How can I keep up to date?
Many news sites offer a handy service called RSS (which stands for “Really Simple Syndication”). If you use RSS, websites can deliver their latest news updates (in the form of simple headlines) directly to your computer—without your having to check the sites yourself. You will need an RSS reader to do it: this will regularly scan all your chosen sites for new content and then display it for you, all together in one place. You may already be using a type of RSS reader if you have a personalized home page (such as My Yahoo! or My MSN)—this is how you get news, weather, and other updates on your page. Some browsers have a built-in feed reader: this is called Live Bookmarks on Firefox and RSS Feeds on Internet Explorer; others require you to download a feed reader as an add-on from your browser’s online store (see here for information about using add-ons). And some email programs also offer the facility to have feeds delivered to your inbox.
It works like this: if you want to be kept updated with the latest Washington Post headlines, say, go to the website of the Washington Post and find the page with links to the different RSS channels. Click on the area that interests you, and you’ll be taken to a page with an RSS icon 
, where you can choose how you want to subscribe—that is, whether you want the updates to go to your Yahoo! page or to Live Bookmarks, for example. Repeat this process for any other type of news story, or updates from any website that you’d like to receive regularly. Then go to your RSS feed reader, and you’ll be able to access all your chosen web feeds instantly—and together. Alternatively, you can sign up to an online feed reader and read your feeds on its website. Or you can download its app to your mobile device—Feedly is one such service. You search for sites or stories of interest to you through the site/app, and add them to your page, where they are displayed, magazine-style, with images.
Can I read books online as well as magazines and newspapers?
This is another amazing thing about the Internet: it gives you instant access to millions of books. The net makes it easy to buy them new—just like any other commodity—from an online store. And a simple search makes it possible to track down bibliographic rarities or obscure books to any secondhand bookstore that keeps an online catalog of its stock (as many now do). You can do what was once impossible: scan miles of dusty shelving around the world in a couple of clicks.
But the Internet has brought about a much more far-reaching shift in the way we use books. E-books—texts that are bought, delivered, and read in digital form—have changed the way that we read books. Almost every new novel—and many nonfiction works—are now published as e-books as well as in traditional paper form. The e-book is usually significantly cheaper than the paper version, because there are no printing costs.
The Internet gives you instant access to millions of books—from much-loved classics to brand-new bestsellers.
What’s the best way to read an e-book?
The most comfortable way is on an e-reader, which is a light, handheld Internet device designed to be as portable and legible as a printed-on-paper version (see here). You can change the size of the type (and the font) to suit yourself. Lots of people read books on a tablet—which has the advantage of being able to display color images, so is better for illustrated books. You can also read e-books on a smartphone (though you may find the print uncomfortably small) or on the screen of a desktop or laptop computer. You may need to download a book-reading app—Amazon offers a free Kindle app for most devices—or this may be built in to your device.
I have just bought an e-reader. How do I start building a digital book collection?
You will need to give a method of payment when you set up your e-reader—you only have to do this once. Somewhere on the e-reader’s home screen there will be an icon for the online store. Tap on this, type the name of the book you want into the search bar, or browse through the various menus to check books on offer. Tap on the book’s title, and then tap the Buy button, and it will download onto your device right away (or you may have to type in your password). You can also opt to download a sample—a chapter or two. When you reach the end, you get the option to buy the whole book. A tablet works in exactly the same way.
How about free books? Is there anywhere I can get those?
You can, but not all books. Books that are out of copyright (usually because the author is long dead) are often available in online versions for free. Books that are in copyright have to be paid for, so that the writer (or his or her estate) continues to receive a royalty.
Project Gutenberg (gutenberg.org) is a voluntary project that offers an impressive online collection of more than 40,000 full versions of books. Many classic titles can be found there, including the works of authors such as William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and Charles Dickens. You don’t need to register to search the database of titles. If you’re unsure where to start, look at the site’s list of its Top 100 Books, where you’ll see the titles that are the most popular with other readers. You can choose to read these e-books for free, or to download them to your computer or mobile device. All the main online bookstores—including Amazon, iTunes, and Google Play—also offer free, out-of-copyright titles for downloading, although you may still need to register a payment method in order to do this.
What about academic journals? Can I access them online?
One of the boons of the Internet age is that academic writing has become much more accessible. The largest online academic resource is JSTOR (jstor.org), which offers digitized versions of more than 2,000 journals, periodicals, and research articles. At the moment, the main collection can’t be accessed by private individuals, but if you are affiliated with an academic institution, public library, research institution, museum, or school that has an active subscription, you may be able to gain access to the collections.
How do I track down academic articles?
Google Scholar is a free service that allows users to search for keywords in academic resources, including journals, technical reports, and research theses. Go to scholar.google.com. Enter your keyword in the search box, and you’ll be provided with a list of results that are sorted in order of relevance to your keyword. Many of the results you see will require you to subscribe to the publishing website of the journal or article before you can read the full text, but short extracts should be available.
Sounds brilliant. What other academic resources are available online?
Top universities from around the globe, including Harvard, Berkeley, Oxford, and NYU, regularly make lectures on a range of academic subjects available for free on their websites. University College London offers live streams of some of its lectures, as well as video podcasts.
Museum websites can also be a good resource for quality academic research—the online collections of the Smithsonian have more than eight million digital records that can be accessed, while more than two million digital records exist in the British Museum’s collection, and around 2,000 new image records are being added each week. The UK’s Open University—which specializes in distance learning—has made a selection of lectures available for free on its YouTube site (see here for more about YouTube). Free learning resources are available from its OpenLearn site (openuniversity.edu), and you can try out a range of short introductory courses—also for free.
So I have to go to each website to try and find a lecture I am interested in?
There are some general resources. The website academicearth.org has collected links to various lectures from some of the world’s leading institutions, including Cornell, Yale, Princeton, Oxford, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
If you’re just looking for thought-provoking commentary, have a look through the BBC’s archive of Reith Lectures, which includes every lecture ever broadcast since the series’ inauguration in 1948. And check out the iTunes U app, which enables users to download a selection of lectures and talks from celebrated academics from more than 400 universities around the world. You can access these audio and video files for free on your home PC or Mac, or install the iTunes U app if you have an iPad or iPhone.
What kind of health and medical issues can I find out about online?
Pretty much any issue. No matter how unusual the ailment or condition, chances are that someone has written about it online or designed an app that will help you to find out the facts you need. The most commonly researched health topics are specific diseases or conditions, symptoms, treatments, or procedures. People also search for information on particular hospitals, doctors, or other healthcare professionals.
What apps are available?
All sorts. There are apps such as WebMD that allow you to input symptoms and receive a (speculative) diagnosis; there are others that give first-aid advice or treatment tips, or allow you to track your symptoms.
There are even guides that identify drugs and medicines by pill shape and color (for example, Pill Identifier).
As good as going to the doctor, then?
Well, no, not really. There is no substitute for visiting your doctor and getting professional advice when you really need it. Don’t fall into the trap of diagnosing yourself (or your family members) with every ailment, bug, and epidemic just because you read something online that sounds a bit similar to your symptoms. There’s definitely some good information out there—health professionals use the web to track down the latest research—but you need to learn how to understand it. You always need to exercise caution when researching facts on the Internet, and this is doubly important when you are looking at health.
Can the web help me find a doctor in my area?
Yes, there are lots of ways the web can help you find a doctor. For a start, there are websites that list general practitioners in pretty much any city or area. To find these, simply type “find a doctor” plus the name of the city/area you are in. These directories can be very useful—for finding a doctor not only in your hometown, but also when you are on vacation or traveling for business. There are websites that offer ratings on doctors, but most healthcare professionals do not think that these offer a helpful assessment of a doctor’s skill.
The web is a useful tool if you are looking for a specialist—if you want to see a dermatologist, for example, then you can type in “doctor, dermatology” plus your city (or the nearest one). The results will include the websites of doctors and clinics, with details of services, location, and other useful information. Before visiting any doctor you find on the net, it is a good idea to go to the website of the governing medical body for the country you are in—and check that he or she is registered. You can also type the doctor’s name and specialization into a search engine to see what academic papers he or she has published. This can give you an idea of his or her standing.
There are also websites where you can pose a medical question and get an answer from a qualified doctor—askthedoctor.com is one. The advice is general in nature, but can be a good way of getting information. You can look through thousands of previous questions and answers, too.
If you are looking for health information on the Internet:
• Start with official websites, which offer up-to-date, well-researched information on symptoms and treatments, as well as details about clinical trials. Try the National Institutes of Health (nih.gov, which receives 20 million visitors a month), the Mayo Clinic website (mayoclinic.org), the World Health Organization (who.int), and MedlinePlus (medlineplus.gov). Sites that end in .gov should be reliable because only government organizations can use this suffix—at least you know the sites are reputable and that the information is likely to have been rigorously researched.
• You should also look at sites belonging to educational institutions (which have the suffix .edu). These can be a great source of research-based information. But do bear in mind that some institutions are allied with particular health companies and the research may be skewed in their favor.
• Another good bet are associations, charities, and other nonprofit organizations (which are designated .org). These, too, often provide links to new research, and may also run helplines and other services. National charities can be the most helpful because they can help you pinpoint treatment options where you live; sites like heart.org, for example, tend to be well funded and have strong research links. Be aware that anyone can obtain a .org suffix, so you need to check the site is run by a reputable organization.
• Don’t discount commercial sites—some have become highly respected for the sound, comprehensive advice they provide. The WebMD, Mayo Clinic, medicinenet.com and drugs.com websites are all popular and worthwhile. But, of course, there are many .com health websites that exist purely to promote certain products, so you need to exercise caution.
• If you are looking for the latest cutting-edge research, search for websites belonging to universities and other educational institutions (make sure they are bona fide), where you can access the latest research papers and articles. The NIH maintains a useful and free database of research (called PubMed) that you can access.
Be wary of:
• Sites overloaded with advertisements, or promising miracle cures.
• Sites that push a particular treatment option or remedy, whether they are commercial or alternative.
• Personal blogs—these can be interesting reading, and can contain good information, but one person’s subjective experience will not necessarily tell you anything about your own health.
