How do I use HotWired?

HotWired is a hypermedia publication. While browsing through HotWired, you can click on certain words, phrases or pictures within a document and see other related documents, or see short video, or hear a sound. Words, phrases, or images that link to other resources are called, appropriately enough, LINKS.

The basic structure of HotWired is determined by a global hypermedia network called the World Wide Web. When you browse the Web, you use - yes - a BROWSER. You are probably using a Web browser now. Any good Web browser will allow users to access most of the public documents, or PAGES, on the Web. While some browsers will retrieve only text, you are probably using a graphical browser for the Web. With a graphic Web browser, you can see both the text and the images on the Web. We hope you are using a graphical browser to see and hear HotWired! (For information on where to find graphical browsers, see the Browsers section below.)

All browsers are different, but all share the basic conventions of the Web. The Web allows three types of links: text links, graphic links, and imagemaps. Text links will probably show up on your browser as colored, underlined words. Graphic links have a colored, rectangular outline around them.

An imagemap is a third kind of link, and it can be deceptive. An imagemap is a graphic image that usually contains more than one link. The areas on the imagemap that serve as links are called "hot zones." If you click your mouse while the cursor is in the hot zone, you will activate the link. The top page of all the HotWired sections, with Max Kisman's excellent illustrations, are all imagemaps. If you are not using a graphical browser, you will not be able to use the imagemaps, and therefore you will not have much luck browsing the site. To repeat: We hope you are using a graphical browser to see and hear HotWired!