Getting Files . . .

1. Downloading software differs depending on which download site you visit. It would certainly be nice if there were a uniform standard, but, unfortunately, there is not. However, most times you see something like:

2. Whatever the initial download looks like, click on the program, plug-in, sound, video, etc. that you want to get. To describe what happens next, we will use Netscape as an example, because it is the most commonly used WWW browser client in use at present; fortunately, other browsers (such as Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE)) behave similarly. Netscape will bring up a window that looks like this (in Version 2):

             

If you have another version of Netscape, it may look a bit different.

3. The key button in #2 above is "[Save File...]" or "[Save to Disk]". Click on this. It will bring up a file system window, essentially the same as you might see if you had clicked on "[File]" and "[Save As...]". Navigate your way to some appropriate part of your hard disk and click on [OK] to begin the download. We suggest that you use an easy-to-remember directory or folder to save your file in; "temp" or "download" have proven to be useful directory names for this purpose.

4. Downloading is now in progress! You'll have to wait for it to complete, and the amount of time can be considerable. For example, Netscape 3.0 (4 Mbytes) takes 30 minutes or longer, depending on the time of day. Regardless, follow the progress of the download in the Netscape download window that came up when you initiated the download.

5. When the download window reaches 100% and disappears, the download is complete! Now the file is on your computer's hard disk in a directory such as "c:\temp".

 

Now, your download is complete. Go "Back" to get to the next section, or click on Section B to continue. Read on if you'd like to see a download example . . .

 

As an example, let's download Stuffit Expander, an unzipping utility, that we will get from TUCOWS (The Ultimate Collection of Winsock Software). There are two fairly local TUCOWS sites that may choose from:

[TUCOWS Site 1]     |     [TUCOWS Site 2]

After the TUCOWS site loads, select either Win95, Win3.x, or Mac depending on your operating system. Then, click on Compression Utilities and locate Stuffit Expander. To download the software from this site, simply click on the name (which you will notice is big and in hypertext). You may need to scroll down the page to find the file of interest. As above, direct the download to the proper place on your hard disk, and click on [OK] to start the download. Wait for downloading to complete, and then you're all done. Good job!!

A. Getting Files from the Internet / World Wide Web

          B. What to do if the Downloaded File is a *.zip or *.hqx

                    C. What to do if the Downloaded File is a *.exe

                              D. Moving the Downloaded File(s) to a Disk Directory of Your Choice

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