Everyone that uses the Internet has wanted to download something for later use at some time or another. A sound file of your favourite band? A very funny video clip, or even a photo, or maybe a whole page of information that you don't want to lose.

In this helpful article you'll find out.......

• What kind of files you can download from the Internet
• Ways of saving those files
• Making sure your downloads are safe
  

To be honest, you can download anything you find on a web page. Whether it is a sound file, photo, or even a large amount of text. You can save it and it is alot easier than you think.

You can download these files simply because they are all separately stored on the web server you are accessing to view them. For instance, this web page is a simple text file, with a couple of pictures that are stored on 2-inspire`s web server. It is available to everyone, so anyone can make a copy. The same is true for the images on this page, like the 2-inspire logo.

You do have to be careful when downloading information. For a start, you cannot download this web page and pass it off as your own or even e-mail it to others. That is a violation of copyright law. You also cannot download the images on web pages and use them on your own page -- most of the images on the web are also covered by copyright law, unless the site specifically says that you can use their images for free, or you ask permission to use or copy anything on the site. These days images and text can be protected, and there are ways of tracing copyrighted material. Alot of sites will let you use text or images as long as you have a link back to their website from yours if you have one.

One other thing that you should make sure you don't do is try to save to much from the Internet. If you are downloading loads of pictures, sound files and text your hard drive will soon fill up and it is suprising on how quickly it does fill up. Most people only download music from the Internet for instance because they can do it, but not many people actually listen to it, which to us is a complete waste of time.

Storing Your Downloads Neatly......

Most people that download from the Internet will store their downloaded material in the "My Documents" folder. If you are going to do this we suggest you create some new folders to store seperate things like pictures, sound files etc.

Firstly, to create a new folder in the "My Documents" folder (which is situated on your desktop) double click on the folder to open it up. Next, right-click inside the folder in a blank area, go down to New on the menu, then click on Folder. This will create a new folder for you which you can then rename to whatever you are going to store in it.

Web Pages:
To save a web page........... might as well make it this one as a trial, as you are reading it right now, so let's try saving it on your hard drive.

To start, click on the File menu and choose Save As... (if the web page is part of a "frame", you will need to choose Save Frame As... instead, this is because the page is made up of more than one page, confusing hey).

At this point, the normal Save dialog box will pop up. This box looks different depending on whether you are using a Mac, Windows 95, or Windows 98/ME/XP or NT. But in any case, the concept is the same: you should change to the folder you designated as your "downloads" folder. The one you created is in your "My Documents" folder, so we would click on the menu and choose "My Documents", and then double-click on the "Downloads" folder (whichever folder you are saving webpages to). Remember -- you must create this folder yourself. Then, simply click on the Save button. That's it! You've saved the web page on your hard drive. To retrieve it, simply switch to your desktop, double-click on the "My Computer" folder, double-click on the folder you just saved the page to, and then double-click on the file. Yes, it's that easy.

Pictures/Images:
Saving an image is only slightly different. To save it in your downloads folder, right-click on it. A menu will pop up (this is called a "context-sensitive" menu). You will now be able to choose Save Image As... if you are using Netscape, and Save Picture As... if you are using Internet Explorer. Once you do, the very same Save dialog box will up as when you saved the web page (see above). Follow the same procedure for switching to your download folder and saving, and you're done. Once again, to retrieve the image, just go to your desktop, double-click on the "My Computer" folder, then again double-click on the folder you saved it to, and double-click on the image!

Programs and Other Files:
With most other types of files and programs, the web site will provide a link to it. A box will then pop up, asking you whether you want to open the file, or save it to disk. We don't recommend that you EVER open the file -- always save it to disk first. When you click on save, the standard dialog box will pop up again and you can save it as you did with the other files above.

And thats all there is to it really. There is one thing we would like to point out though. If you are going to be downloading programs and other files, we would like to stress, DO NOT open it straight away. You should get into the habit of scanning the downloaded program or file with an antivirus package first. If you want to find out more about viruses click here.