The Web is useful. You can find old friends online. You can research and book flight reservations①. Check the weather. Check out your high school or college alma mater. Find breaking news. Research political issues. Follow your stock portfolio. Place a classified ad. And， of course， more and more vendors are setting up shop on the Web. Books， CDs， computers， even cars. You can learn how to do some of these activities in later sections of this tutorial.
The Internet is also fun. You can write to old friends. Or check out their web pages. Enjoy web-based soap operas. Laugh at online parodies and jokes. Join in a live Net Event. Chat with other Internet surfers. Pick a fake stock portfolio②. Check to see if your name appears anywhere on the Web. Do wacky random searches. Millions of users log on to the Net every day， and it’s not just to do research. There’s a lot of fun out there. That’s one reason it’s called web “surfing”.
① reservationn. 保留， (旅馆房间等)预定， 预约
② portfolion. 部长职务
但这有用吗
万维网确实是有用的：你可以在网上找到你的老朋友，你可以了解并且预订飞机票、查询天气、查询你中学和大学母校的情况、得知早间新闻、了解政治事件、随时获悉你的股票价格、刊登分类广告等等。自然，越来越多的商人在网上开起了商店，出售书籍、CD、计算机，甚至汽车。这份指南材料的后面的一些章节会指导你学会一些这类活动。
因特网也很好玩：你可以给老朋友写信，或查看他们的网页；欣赏网上电视连续剧；网上还有模仿的滑稽剧和笑话让你开心；你可以参与实况网络动态节目；与别的因特网冲浪者聊天；模拟跟踪股票价目；查看你的名字是否出现在网上的任何地方；进行任意搜索。每天都有数百万人上网，而且不仅仅是搜索，那里有很多有趣的事情，这是被称为冲浪的原因之一。