News of Norway, issue 8, 1996
Here are some useful public websites in and on Norway:
- The Norwegian government homepage to the U.S.: www.norway.org .
Here you will find back issues of this newsletter and information on tourism, government, events, culture and history, business and economics, and a popular bulletin board. This service is provided by the Consulate General in New York and the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Washington D.C. and may serve as your gateway to the fjords.
- Let’s say you want to travel somewhere in Norway and want some up-to date information on your travel destination. Look under the tourism "button" at the official Norwegian web page described above, or go directly to this address: www.norway.org/tourism.htm.
- Norway- Tours and Activities: www.norway.org/toac.htm. Under this page you will also find a lot of Regional Tourist Information.
- The Norwegian Government homepage : www.odin.dep.no/html/english
This page provides news, and sources of information on the Norwegian government.
Useful private websites for your pleasure:
Here is a useful link page that includes universities and a number of other good pages in English:
Media
If you are keen to read foreign newspapers in Norwegian, try these ones:
FAQ
This page answers frequently asked questions about Norway in detail.
Currently some frequently asked questions are;
Of course it is also a good idea to search for information on Norway through for instance "net search" in Netscape or through other search tools. If you search for references to Norway on the Internet, you find over 10.000 hits. Here are a couple of well-used newsgroups: Usenet: Soc.culture.nordic Soc.genealogy.nordic Good luck with your Norway net-travel!!!
Success with the Bulletin Board
Do you have a question about Norway? Do you want to find your ancestors there? We can not guarantee an immediate answer to any question, but a lot of on-line users might know how to find one? On the Embassy’s web page, Norwegians and Americans correspond and exchange information about almost every topic under the sun. Anyone interested in Norway can use this "bulletin board." Last July the Information Service of the Consulate General in New York and the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Washington D.C. made an experimental posting of this on-line bulletin board on which users interested in Norway could share information. The response has been amazing, and new letters come in every day. During these two months the bulletin board has started its own life. The intention is to give anybody the opportunity to share personal experiences about Norway. The top of the page reads: Personal experiences with a quaint of Bed & Breakfast by the fjords... a new recipe of Lefse... discuss the last Norwegian exhibition you visited. The bulletin board is also a place where people interested in Norway can ask questions in hopes of getting answers. So far there have been more questions than answers on the board. The reason for the lack of answers is probably that the board is not well known yet. Any Norwegians or friends of Norway out there can lend a hand by calling up the bulletin board to see if there are any questions they can answer. (Address: http://www.norway.org/noisbbs/) The New York Consulate General and the Embassy in D.C has not answered many questions because the intention is to let users interact with each other. If you have concrete or formal questions you w proper authorities to answer send a mail to But in near future the Norwegian foreign Service authorities will start responding to some of the more complicated questions related to travel, visa procurement, search for relatives, student programs and procedures for work permits. This project, like so many on the Internet, enables you to interact with distant strangers--people who are interested in your subject. Some may be looking for lost friends, books and documents. There are men who want to live in Norway because their girl friends live there. There are American women who want to know Norwegian men, others who want pen pals, people who want to sell knitwear, and travelers who want to find bargain hotels or adventurous travel routes. Some are interested in learning local customs and the Norwegian language. If you just want to tell about your experience in Norway--whether the sun was shining or not, whether you liked it or not--the bulletin board is where you can do it. For direct access to the bulletin board: http://www.norway.org/noisbbs/
Norway On-line for Beginners
The worst mistake made by people who have never gone on-line is to think that you must be a computer expert to do it. Wrong! If you are able to use a typewriter you can use the Internet. It functions like a library, except that you do not have to move around physically to get information. And instead of asking a human librarian, you tell the computer what you are looking for.
How to Hook Up
To go on-line you need three things: a computer (with a mouse), a modem and service through an Internet access provider
* The computer should have 16 megabytes of memory, although 8 megabytes will do. The larger memory is better because it will increase the speed of your machine, and it will encounter fewer problems loading pages heavy with graphics.
* The modem is a device that enables the computer to connect with telephone lines. Most new computers have the built-in modems.
* An Internet subscription provides access to the Internet. To find an access provider--such as America On-Line, Netcom, Compuserve or Sprynet--check newspaper ads or computer magazines. You should not pay more than $25 a month for unlimited Internet access which includes use of the worldwide web (WWW), news, e-mail, and necessary software. If you are not sure whether you will be a regular user you can subscribe for a month or so, and then decide if you want a year’s subscription. Many universities offer free on-line access for students. Some public libraries do that as well.
E-Mail v. Web Site: What’s the Difference?
Many beginners do not know the difference between an e-mail address and a web site address. An e-mail address allows people to send or receive documents electronically; it enables interaction between an individual sender and receiver. If you want to write letters by computer to your daughter studying in Norway, each of you must have an e-mail address. Web pages provide information in a more public way. Firms, organizations and schools all present themselves to the Internet public through "web sites." Web pages are used mostly to give brief, visual overviews, information and summary presentations. They also offer links to more specific information; you may easily work your way into more information from the first web-page. This is where people get addicted to the net. It is fun to "surf" from one page to another finding more and more information through "links." Links function like doors in a castle; you naturally want to learn where the doors lead.
How to Search
When you have found your way into the worldwide web (WWW) the searching process begins. If you want to know about, say, the Norwegian Prime Minister, you can write the search term "Prime Minister" under "net search" and see what happens. You may then get information on all the prime ministers in the world. Still, you can narrow down your search from there and click on "Prime Minister of Norway;" then you would find the information you were looking for. Sometimes you will use a word that is too broad and you will come up with a thousand "hits"--too many to look through. In that case you must be inventive and come up with a word that delivers fewer hits. There are many "search engines," which are actually helpers. They might have different ways of finding the information you are looking for. Some engines are better than others. Many people today use either Webcrawler or Yahoo. The web page addresses often look long and difficult, but there is an advantage of knowing them. If you know the web address of an organization, a firm, a radio station or a University you can punch it in under "find address" and the computer will find the web page you are looking for in a much shorter time than using the net search function. Here is the address for the Royal Norwegian Embassy’s web page: http://www.norway.org/.
Bookmarks
Remember to mark the addresses in your computer using "bookmark."(Also called "hotlist" in some software programs.) Using the net search can be time-consuming.
How to use bookmark: On the top of your screen, when in netscape, there is a line "bookmark." When you look at your web page, and want to save the page address before moving on, do this:
- Click on the bookmark icon.
- Click on "add bookmark." If you follow this procedure your web address be saved in a list.
When you want to look at the saved page, just click on the bookmark and on the saved address with your mouse. The computer will find it.