The mouse controls the movement of the arrow (or other) cursor on the screen. The hot spot of the mouse is the tip of the arrow; when you want to click on something, move the tip of the arrow over it, then click the mouse button (if your mouse has two buttons, usually it's the one on the left you'll press).
Links
The most important thing to remember about the web is that it is mostly a series of links. Some links lead to other pages, some lead to other parts of the same page. Spotting the links on a page is essential for surfing the web. Try clicking on lots of different places in the window to find links. Links are usually represented by:
Underlined text, usually in a different color from that of surrounding text
Pictures of any sort, especially:
pictures of buttons (like the alphabet buttons above in Little Explorers)
pictures that are in a box
pictures that look 3-D
pictures that look like they lead somewhere (for example, a house usually leads to a home page)
Patience is a Virtue on the Web
Patience is certainly needed when surfing the web. Pages with large pictures or a lot of content are sometimes slow to load; sometimes the net itself is just slow. Also, when things seem to be so slow that you suspect they've stopped, your network connection may have gone down (perhaps your phone is disconnected, or your Internet software needs to be restarted, or your Internet service provider is down).
Try to avoid a lot of clicking ahead; clicking over and over on a spot won't make the page load any faster, and will probably slow things down.
If you click on a link before a page has finished loading, you will interrupt the transfer of data. Then, the links going to later places within that page (like the links at the top of this page) won't all work, and the computer won't tell you why. At this point, reload the page; to do this, click on the "reload" or "refresh" button.
Some pages no longer exist. When this is the case, you'll usually get a message telling you that the file was not found. At this point, going back to the previous page (using the "Back" button) is the easiest option.
Resizing the Window
Resize the window in order to see as much content as possible. To make your window larger:
Mac users: Either click on the zoom box in the upper-right corner of the window or move your window to the upper left of the screen (by dragging it by the title bar), then drag the size box in the bottom right corner of your window to the bottom right corner of the screen.
Windows95 users (Windows is similar): Either click on the maximize button (it's the middle button of the three in the upper right corner of the window) or expand the window by dragging the various edges and/or corners to the extremes of the screen.
Scrolling
Use scroll bars to see parts of a page that are out of sight. To scroll up or down in a page, either click on the up- or down-arrow on the right side of the window (to scroll a little at a time) or click in the gray bar at the right of the window (to scroll a window-full at a time). To scroll left or right on a page, either click on the left- or right-arrow on the bottom of the window (to scroll a little at a time) or click in the gray bar on the bottom of the window (to scroll a window-full at a time). If there aren't scroll bars visible, everything on the page fits in your window.
The scroll box inside a scroll bar moves as you make your way through a page. In the vertical scroll bar, the scroll box is at the top of the scroll bar when the beginning of the page is showing in the window, and it's at the bottom of the scroll bar when the end of the page is showing in the window; when the window is showing something from the middle of a page, the scroll box shows the relative position (between beginning and end) that you're seeing in the window. (On the Macintosh, the scroll box is always a small square. On Windows systems, the size of the scroll box changes to show what fraction of the page is showing in the window.)
Going Back a Page
To go back a page, click on the "Back" button, which will contain a left-pointing arrow, the word "Back", or both.
