SWAN - Solid Waste Alaska Network

(Note: If you are new to the Internet, read this section, otherwise skip to the next section “How to find information” below)

Website: A Website is like a book. It refers to the whole story with all the chapters.

Web page, or “page”: A webpage is the words or pictures on the computer screen. A webpage can be really long. Longer than your screen is. As long as you can get down to the bottom of the page, it is still a single page. You can go down to the bottom of a long page by “scrolling”; or by using your keys

(at the right-hand side of your keyboard).

Home page: The home page is the

main page of a website. It is usually the first page you get to. Just like your home, it is a place to rest before going back out for more information. Unless you used the Index, you probably were just at the SWAN’s home page.

Click: You had to click on something to get here. Clicking just means moving the arrow or cursor over the picture or words and then pressing the mouse so that it clicks.

Download: Some things that you click in our website will lead you to a document. When people “download” something, it just means that they are moving the document from the Internet to their computer. When it is on your computer, you can use and print it without being on the Internet.

Our site is organized to reflect the strong oral traditions our Native cultures have. We try to make it so that you can feel like you are talking with someone. And they are guiding you where you want to go. We call this the “Guide” way of using our site.

But we know some people like finding information by using an index. So we have an “Index” way to find information.

Then some people like reading maps. So we also have a “Map” way of finding information.

Guide way
Using the four “puffins” to guide you:

Do you see four puffin beaks, eyes, and head feathers? Hint: the beaks are facing down. Each of the four puffins on the home page will guide you through a solid waste topic: Planning, Funding, Practicing, and Educating. Click on the topic that you would like information about. You will be shown a set of choices for that topic. You click on what you want to know, and so on. We think this is the easiest way to find the right information. If you use the other ways, it can be harder to find what you are really looking for.

To make it simpler, you can click on the planning, funding, practicing, and educating links at the top right of each website page. This way, you don’t need to go back to the homepage.

Index way
If you know exactly what you are looking for, you can use our A-Z Index. All the topics and documents are listed in alphabetical order. The A-Z Index is located on the side bar of the main webpage as well as on the bottom of the website (where is says “A-Z Index Find it Fast! ”).

For example, say you wanted to find information about Recycling. Go to the A-Z Index, click on “R” and find Recycling. Or say you wanted to find out about burnboxes –go to the A-Z Index, click “B” and find Burnboxes.

Map way
Another way to find information is to look at our site map. Our site map lists the all the website topics in an “outline” format. You can find the site map by clicking on the “Site Map” link at the bottom of the website, or under “S” for “Site Map ” in our A-Z Index.

Wherever you are in the site, you can always click on the SWAN at the top left corner. The SWAN will take you back to the starting homepage.

The “Home” link underneath the SWAN will also take you back to the homepage.

If ever you need to go back to the page you just looked at, look for the “back” arrow at the very top left of your screen.

If you use Microsoft Internet Explorer, the back button will look like this:

If you don’t have a back button at the top left of your screen, go to the top of the screen (in the grey area) and right click with your mouse. Click on “standard buttons”. Now you should see a back button.

Likewise, if you want to go “forward” to the page you were on, click the forward button which is to the right of the back button.

Many links on our website link to “pdf” documents. PDF stands for Portable Document Format. Our PDF documents are printer-friendly. But to to view them, you must have a program called Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer.
If you don’t have Acrobat Reader, click below on the otter to get it – it’s free and doesn’t take long to download! If you are not sure you have it, it is okay to download it anyway.