Web Tips


Windows Tips Access Tips Word Tips Excel Tips PowerPointTips FrontPage Tips Netscape Tips Explorer Tips Web Tips Web Search Tips	Build a home. Portals such as Yahoo, Netscape, and Excite let you create your own custom Web page. You can display your choice of weather, news, stock information, recipes, horoscopes, TV and movie listings, and other information services. Visit Yahoo, Netscape, or Excite, choose to personalize the site. Home sweet home. When you find a page you’d like to see whenever you load your browser, set the page as your browser’s Home page. First display the page on the screen, then in Internet Explorer 5, choose Tools, then Internet Options; click the Use Current button; and click OK. In Netscape Navigator 4 choose Edit, Preferences; select the Navigator option; choose Home Page from the Window on the right; and click Use Current Page.
a	Foreign language translations. If a search turns up a Web page written in a foreign language, you can get the page translated if you copy the address and drop it into the translation text box at http://babelfish.altavista.com. From the lists, choose the ‘from’ and ‘to’ language and click Translate to view the translated page. http://www.freetranslation.com Add a Translate button. If you frequently need to translate Web pages, you can add the AltaVista translation option to your Web browser by following the instructions at: http://doc.altavista.com/help/search/babel_tool.shtml. Solve 404 errors. A 404 Not Found error means the Web page you’re looking for can’t be found. However, you can often find something relevant by removing text from the right side of the Web address up to the first backslash and then press Enter. If you still don’t get rid of the error, repeat this for as many slashes as there are in the address. Reload slow pages. If your browser seems to be loading a page very slowly, you may benefit from stopping the current load and beginning again. To do this choose Stop or press ESC to stop the load and choose the Reload or Refresh button to begin again. Protecting the kids. If your children use your computer to browse the Web you’ll find filtering software goes some of the way toward maintaining their safety. However there are other issues which are of concern, and you’ll find many of these discussed at Safe Kids (http://www.safekids.com). Reading your History. If you’ve forgotten to bookmark a page or add it to your Favorites, you may be able to find it by viewing your History list, which is a list of all the pages you’ve recently visited regardless of whether you book marked them or not. In Netscape Navigator choose Communicator, select Tools, then History, and in Internet Explorer click the History button on the Toolbar to view the list. Radio. If you’d like to listen to the radio while you surf the net, check out the Windows Media site at http://windowsmedia.microsoft.com/radio. You can choose from a range of radio stations to visit and listen to. If you have problems listening to them, try downloading and installing the Windows Media Player, free from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/mediaplayer. Web shortcuts. When you find a Web page you’d like to visit regularly, you can add a shortcut to it on your Windows desktop if you first view the page in your browser. In Internet Explorer 5, right- click the page, choose Create Shortcut, and then click OK. In Netscape Navigator 4, right-click, choose Create Shortcut, change the name if you want to, and click OK. Surf two waves. You can surf two Web sites at the same time if you open two browser windows. To do this, choose File, New and in Internet Explorer 5, choose Window; in Netscape Navigator choose Navigator Window. Both windows will operate independently of each other so you can surf different sites in each. Open in a new window. When viewing search engine results, you’ll lose your search list if you simply click a link. Instead, keep the search results visible in their own window by right-clicking the link and choose Open in New Window from the menu. Read the fine print. Before you join the rush of an online auction, make sure you read the fine print explaining your legal obligations and the protections available to you. Some sites provide that in certain situations, a losing bid can become a winning one a few days later, and you’ll need to be aware of this. Other sites offer escrow services and other ways you can protect yourself against a fraudulent seller. Maintain your privacy. When you surf the Web you’re often asked to type your e-mail address. Unfortunately some sites sell these addresses to other people and you can end up receiving a lot of unsolicited e-mail (or spam). To avoid having your primary e-mail account being jammed with spam, sign up for a free e-mail service and give out this address to sites that may not respect your privacy. E-mail on the go. If you travel a lot consider using a browser-based e-mail service such as Hotmail or Yahoo! mail. Provided you remember your login ID and password, you can send and receive e-mail via any Web browser from any Internet connection in the world. AOL mail on the go. Traveling without your AOL connection? Don’t worry; your AOL e-mail is available online at http://www.aol.com. Simply type your screen name and password, and you can send and receive your AOL mail from a Web browser anywhere. Find the search text. If you’ve typed some search text into a search engine and located a page of interest, you can find the text on that page by using the browser’s Find option. In IE,choose Edit, then Find In Netscape Navigator choose Edit and then Find in Page. Type the text and click Find Next. Family e-mail accounts. If you have a number of family members sharing an e-mail account, it can get a bit crowded, and you risk mixing up each other’s e-mail. If this is the case, check with your Internet service provider (ISP) to see if it allows you to have more than one account without extra cost. If not, sign up each family member for a free e-mail account with a company such as Hotmail or Yahoo!. Type too small? When you find yourself on a Web site where the typeface is too small to read comfortably (of if you are using a notebook computer with a small screen), you can alter your browser’s type setting to increase the type size. In Internet Explorer 5, choose View, then Text Size and choose Larger or Largest. In Netscape Navigator 4, choose View, then Increase Font. It doesn't work on all pages, but it will with most. Stop! When you realize you’ve made a mistake clicking a link, and you want to stop the page from loading, press ESC or click the Stop button on your browser’s toolbar. Then click the Back button on the browser toolbar to return to the original page. Animations begone. If you’re viewing a Web page and find the animated images are becoming annoying, you can stop them from playing by clicking the Stop button on your browser’s toolbar. Just make sure the page is finished loading before you do this. Tell me when it changes. If you’d like to know when a Web site changes but don’t want to check it yourself, try a service such as Netmind at http://www.netmind.com/html/individual.html. Tell the service which page or pages you want to track and enter your e-mail address, and you’ll receive an e-mail message when the page changes. Your IP address. If you’re using a standard dial-up line to connect to your ISP, chances are you’re allocated an IP address every time you log on. If you need to find the IP address you’re using for the current session, choose Start, Run and then type “winipcfg” and read the address from the dialog box. Go. When you’re looking for a Web site, let your browser find it for you by typing Go and then the name of the site you want to find. If a unique match can’t be found, you’ll see a list of possible sites to choose from. It is often a quicker way of finding a site than firing up a search engine. Save your Searches. If you perform the same Web search often, you can save having to type the search text each time if you bookmark your search results page or add it to your Favorites. Then, to run the search, simply select the Bookmark or Favorite and you’ll see up to date search results. Low disk space. When you run short of disk space, if you’re using Windows 98 (Win98), run Disk Cleanup by choosing Start; selecting Programs, Accessories; and clicking System Tools and then Disk Cleanup. Check what space can be obtained by removing Temporary Internet Files, Downloaded Program Files, and Offline Web Pages. If it’s significant, remove them using the options available. Save it for later. You can make an entire Web page available for viewing offline, in Internet Explorer 5 by displaying the page on the screen and choosing File and then Save As. Choose a folder for the file and from the Save as type drop-down list, choose Web Page, complete (.htm, .html) and click Save. To view the page, simply open the file, and it will appear as it was on the Web, with images included. Printing Web pages. If you don’t label your printouts with the site’s address, it’s all too easy to gather a stack of paper copies of sites you can’t remember how to find again. End this by making sure your printouts have the Web site address in the page header. In Netscape Navigator choose File, Page Setup, enable the Document location [URL] check box, and click OK. In other browsers, check the File and Page Setup options. Full screen viewing. When you have a small screen or you’re using a notebook, you’ll find the less space your browser buttons take up, the more visible screen you have for surfing. In Internet Explorer 5, F11 toggles full-screen view. In other browsers, maximize the window and hide all unnecessary toolbars, menu bars, and even the status bar. Multiple downloads. Your surfing fun doesn’t have to come to a halt while you download a file. You can continue to surf the Web as you download a file. If necessary, open a new window using File, then New, and continue. In ad-dition, most browsers also let you have more than one download running at a time. FTP for serious users. While you can download files using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) via your browser, if you’re doing a lot of downloading, you’ll benefit from using special FTP software such as CuteFTP (http://www.cuteftp.com) or WS_FTP (http://www.ipswitch.com/downloads/ws_ftp_LE.html). These allow you more control over your FTP session, such as resuming interrupted downloads and scheduling a list of them. Unzipping Zip files. When you download files from the Web, chances are they will be archived and compressed into a file with a .ZIP extension. To use these you’ll need to unzip them. Find a downloadable trial version of the shareware program WinZip at http://www.winzip.com; that will do the job for you. From Web to a document. Copy text from a Web page directly into any word processor by highlighting the text on the page with your mouse, choosing Edit, and selecting Copy (or pressing Control+C). Switch to your word processor and choose Edit, then Paste to paste the text into your document. Copying images. If you’re using Internet Explorer you can copy an image from a Web page and paste it into another application. To do this, right-click the image and choose Copy. Switch to the application and choose Edit, then Paste. If you’re using Netscape or another browser, chances are you’ll have to save the image onto your drive then open it in the other application. Cookie control. If you’re concerned about your privacy on the Web, consider monitoring the cookies you are receiving. In Internet Explorer 5 choose Tools; select Internet Options, Security tab; choose Internet; and click Custom Level. Set it to Prompt so you’ll know when a cookie is being created, and you can accept or reject it. Faster surfing #1. When you want to surf faster, and you can do without images, turn off image display. In Internet Explorer 5 choose Tools, select Internet Options, click Advanced, and from the Multimedia section, deselect the Show Pictures check box. In Netscape Navigator 4, choose Edit, select Preferences, choose Advanced, and deselect the Automatically Load Images check box. Faster surfing #2. When you visit a Web site, and you’re offered the option of a fully enhanced version of the site or a plainer version, choose the plain one. Without add-ins such as Shockwave (which add visuals but doesn’t generally add any useful content), you’ll find everything you want more quickly. Viewing images. When surfing with image display turned off, you can still view an image when you want. The presence of an image will be indicated by a box on the screen. Right-click this and, in Netscape Navigator 4, choose Show Image; in Internet Explorer 5 choose Show Picture. Cache it. Your browser’s cache stores images and pages from Web sites as you view them. When you visit the site next, these load from your computer rather than the Web so the page loads quickly. If you have plenty of hard drive space, increase your cache size to maximize its effectiveness. In Netscape Navigator choose Edit; select Preferences, Advanced; and click Cache. In Internet Explorer 5 (where the cache is referred to as temporary files) choose Tools, then Internet Options, General, and Settings. Instant messaging. Know when your friends are online by using the same instant messaging service they use. I Seek You (ICQ; http://www.icq.com), MSN Messenger (http://messenger.msn.com), and Yahoo! Messenger (http://messenger.yahoo.com) are three of the most well known. Download and install the software, add your friends’ details, and you’ll always know when they’re online. The right mouse habit. Develop a habit of using the right mouse button wherever you are in your browser. Right-clicking on the toolbar generally lets you customize toolbars and menus. Right-clicking on a Web page will give you context-sensitive options. While it doesn’t always work, when it does you get quick access to options allowing you to bypass the menus. Customize toolbars. Internet Explorer allows you to customize toolbars to display the buttons you use and remove those you don’t. There are also additional buttons, which aren’t displayed by default. To see what’s available choose View, and Toolbars, then Customize, and add or remove buttons. Finding downloads. The Web is brimming with freeware and shareware programs to download. Two good sites are Tucows network (http://www.tucows.com) and CNET’s Download.com (http://download.cnet.com). Type a description of the type of program you want or browse the featured downloads to see what’s available. Be paid for browsing. The two big browsers aren’t your only options for browsing the Web. Browsers such as Go-ToWorld.com (http://www.gotoworld.com), which is a customized version of the Internet Explorer browser, will pay you money to surf the Web. The downside is that you see a lot of ads, but it might help take the sting out of the monthly ISP bill. Skins for your browser.If the Web isn’t exciting enough for you, why not add a skin to your browser? A skin is a custom interface, which paints your browser the colors of your sports team or makes it look like an old-time radio. If you’re using Internet Explorer 4 or above, visit NeoPlanet at http://www.neoplanet.com and see what’s available. Run a Web site. If your browser isn’t loaded, and you find a Web address you want to check out, simply select Start, Run (or press the WINDOWS key and R simultaneously) in Windows 95/98 (Win9x). Type the URL in the text area, dropping the http:// part if it begins with www and press ENTER. Your browser will open, and the page you’ve requested will be loaded automatically. Address toolbar. If you work connected to the Web, the Address bar gives you the convenience of your browser being available without you having to give up the system resources, which it uses. To add the Address bar in Windows 98, right-click your taskbar and select Toolbars, Address. Copy and paste any URL onto this toolbar, and your browser will open displaying the selected page. Finding a bookmark. In Netscape you can easily search your bookmarks to find a site you know you bookmarked but can’t find the reference to. Choose Bookmarks, then Edit Bookmarks (or press CTRL+B) and select Edit, then Find In Bookmarks (or press CTRL+F). Type a word that you think will be in the entry you’re looking for and click OK. To search again if the first match isn’t what you wanted, press CTRL+G. Share your finds. When you’re browsing the Web, and you find a page you’d like to share with a friend or colleague, send it to them. In Internet Explorer 5 send the page or a link to it by choosing File, Send. In Netscape Navigator choose File, Send Page. Your e-mail program will load, and you can type the recipient’s e-mail address and click Send. Call waiting interrupts.If you find that you lose your Internet connection from time to time, it may be that call waiting is the problem. Inbound phone calls could be killing your connection. To solve the problem, disable call waiting while you’re on the Internet and enable it again once you disconnect. Color schemes. The background your browser uses is usually the one selected for all your windows programs. However, you can alter this at the browser level without having to affect all your other programs. In Netscape Navigator 5, choose Edit, Preferences, and Appearance, then Color. In Internet Explorer, use Tools, select Internet Options, and then Colors. Disable the Use Windows colors option and choose your own instead. In most cases white is the preferred color. Pop e-mail online. If you have a POP e-mail account on your ISP’s server, and you need access to it while you’re traveling, consider using a browser based e-mail option that can also access Post Office Protocol (POP) e-mail. Services like Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail provide this service in addition to browser e-mail. You can even opt to leave the mail on your server so you can read it on the road, and it will still be there when you get home. Free ISPs. If you find that the cost of Internet access is cutting too big a swath out of your budget, check out one of the new free ISPs that offer free connections such as WorldSpy.com (http://www.worldspy.com) and Free Internet (http://www.freei.com). Look for a dial-up number in your dialing area and check with you phone company. Expect to see more companies offering these services in the future. Buddy up. If you don’t subscribe to AOL, but your friends do, you can still chat with them using AOL’s free Instant Messenger software. Download it from http://www.aol.com/aim and add your AOL friend’s IDs to your buddy list. You’ll be notified whenever they are online using AOL, and you can even send them messages. Outlook 2000 the browser. If you use Outlook 2000 as your calendar /scheduling program, you can also use it to browse the Web. Choose Favorites and click a favorite site to load it into the browsing window in Outlook or display the Web toolbar (View, Toolbars, Web) and type an address to visit. Download decisions. You’ll never be confused about where a downloaded file has ended up if you create a special directory for downloads. To do this, use Windows Explorer to create a directory called Downloads (or something similar). Then, whenever you select to download a file, choose this directory as the destination directory. Virus check downloads. One of the easiest ways to pick up a computer virus is from a downloaded program. To reduce the likelihood of a virus attacking your computer, always make sure you check your downloads with a reputable virus checker before you install them. Also ensure that your virus-checking program is up to date so it will detect newer viruses. Update your browser. From time to time, browsers are updated to repair problems in the software and to plug security holes. You should regularly check whether your browser has been updated and, if so, download and install the update. For Internet Explorer check http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie and for Netscape Navigator choose Help and select Software Updates. Protect your privacy. Whenever you’re asked to hand over your e-mail address on a Web site or a reply coupon, read the small print carefully. Most are worded so that, by default, you agree to receive information from the company and its associates and partners. If you don’t want to receive a lot of unwanted e-mail, you’ll need to make a selection to change this default setting. Hoaxes. There are plenty of security issues facing users on the Web, but there are also a lot of hoaxes announcing everything from free money to bananas carrying flesh eating viruses. If you receive e-mail or hear something that you have trouble validating, check these sites for more information: The U.S. Department of Energy’s Computer Incident Advisory Capability at http://www.ciac.org/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html or the ICSA.net at http://www.icsa.net. Smarter driving. If you’re planning a trip across town or across the country, you’ll find details of how to get there online. Try a service such as Mapquest (http://www.mapquest.com) or Expedia (http://maps.expedia.com) for printable maps and driving directions. Foreign language surfing. Some Web sites offer alternate languages so if your primary language isn’t English, set your browser’s default language to your preferred language. The result is that when an alternate language version of a page is available, you’ll see it automatically. Check your browser’s Help section, and for more information for Netscape Navigator, visit http://home.netscape.com/eng/intl/basics.html. Internet Explorer users check out http://support.microsoft.com. Keywords. Netscape Navigator supports a number of Internet keywords that speed up locating information on the Web. For example, type Atlanta movies to see movies in Atlanta or Quote AOL to see the price of AOL shares. Find more information about keywords at http://home.netscape.com/escapes/keywords, including a link for a keyword add-in for Internet Explorer. What’s Related? A new addition to the leading browsers lets you find information on related sites when you have a site on the screen. In Netscape Navigator click the What’s related button on the toolbar, and in Internet Explorer choose Tools, then Show Related Links to see a list of other related sites. Search smart, part one. When you’re searching for a person’s name or a title of something, place the text inside quote marks to search more accurately. For example, searching for Bill Clinton will usually return sites with the words Bill or Clinton or both appearing on them. If you search for “Bill Clinton,” though, you’ll return only sites that have the words Bill Clinton in them side by side and in that order. The results will be more relevant. Search smart, part two. Search engines differ as to how they respond to keywords you type into them. You’ll get better results more quickly when you use the proper syntax for a particular search engine; take the time to learn the basics of two good search engines. You’ll find information about using advanced search functions on the search engine’s site. Learn Boolean basics. Some search engines support the words AND, OR, and NOT allowing you to use Boolean logic in your searches. If a search engine does this, you can exclude pages from a search by limiting the results. For example, typing Bill AND Clinton NOT president will return pages where the words Bill and Clinton appear, but which don’t have the word president in them. Search multiple sites. Some Web search engines let you search multiple search engines at the same time. For example, Ask Jeeves (http://www.askjeeves.com) will search sites such as AltaVista, Excite, Web Crawler, About.com and more for your keywords and will return the top matches at each site. Natural language searches. If you prefer to search for information on the Web by typing a question such as “Who was the second president of the United States?” then you’ll benefit from using a natural language search engine. Ask Jeeves (http://www.askjeeves.com) and the Electric Monk (http://www.electricmonk.com) both accept natural language searches, making them ideal for children and for those times its hard to find the right keywords to search. Watch TV as you surf. If surfing the Web means you’re missing out on your TV-viewing time, why not watch while you surf. Web sites such as WorldWide Internet TV (http://www.wwitv.com/livetv.htm) offer TV channels from all over the world that appear in a small window on your screen as you surf the Web. ICQ privacy. You can set yourself to be invisible using ICQ and still be visible to selected users. To do this, click the ICQ button and select Security & Privacy. Choose the Visible tab and choose Add to Visible List. Select the person to whom you wish to be visible and click OK. Their names will appear in italics in your list, and in the future, even if you’re invisible, they’ll be able to see you. Tell them where to find you. When you sign up for an instant messaging service such as MSN Messenger or ICQ, make sure the people who you want to be able to find you know which service you’re with. A good idea is to include your ICQ number or your MSN messenger ID in the signature line of your e-mail messages. Resources at your fingertips. The Web abounds with useful resources for research projects and school assignments. Probably one of the best known and most respected resources is the Encyclopedia Britannia, which you can find online at http://www.britannica.com. Sound the trumpets. Set ICQ to play a sound whenever a particular user comes online by selecting the user’s name, right-click it, and choose Alert/Accept Modes, Sound Events. Choose the event for which you want a sound to play then choose a sound. If you have the Windows Plus! Pack installed, you’ll find a selection of .WAV sounds there that you can use. Fax on the Web. Most modems come with software for sending faxes, but receiving a fax means you have to have your computer turned on, and you can’t do it at the same time as surfing the Web. However, you can use a free fax receiving service such as eFax (http://www.efax.com). You get your own fax number, and the service forwards all incoming faxes to you via e-mail. You have the benefit of being able to receive faxes anytime, and it won’t cost you anything. Chat in a foreign language. If you want to chat online with someone who speaks another language, arrange to meet at Word2word (http://www.word2word.com). You’ll find Multilingual Translating chat rooms that will translate for you. You can talk in your language, and your friend can talk in theirs; however, you can both follow the conversation. Share your snaps. If you have a scanner or a digital camera, or if you get your photos returned to you on CD, you can upload them to the Web and share them instantly with your friends and family. Check out these free services that will host your photo album online: Adobe ActiveShare (http://www.activeshare.com) and Club Photo (http://www.clubphoto.com). You’ll need to download some software and then use it to upload your images. Chess time. If you are interested in playing chess against another person rather than your computer, surf over to the Internet Chess Club (http://www.chessclub.com). You’ll find a thousand or more people playing at all levels. There is a $49 a year fee, but you can download the software and play a few games to try out the site for free. News on the desktop.If you’d like to keep track of the latest news, install a news ticker on your Windows Desktop, which will display the news as you browse. One good program is Desktop news (http://www.desktopnews.com), which is a free download and a smaller offering is Yahoo! News Ticker (http://my.yahoo.com/ticker.html), which is located in your Windows Taskbar. Banking online. If you’re not yet using online banking, ask your bank what it has available or planned for online banking. Most banks will let you access your account information, transfer funds between accounts, and pay your bills online. If your bank doesn’t do it yet, it’s sure to in the near future. Your own Web site. Fancy pegging out your own area of cyberspace and putting up a Web site on it? Services like Tripod (http://www.tripod.com) and Geocities (http://www.geocities.com) allow you to do this free of charge. Sign up and you’ll get a few megabytes of online disk space, your own Web address, and access to a wizard which steps you through the basics of building your first Web page by simply pointing and clicking. Stay healthy. Surfing the Web may be your hobby, but it can be very stressful to your body if you don’t take regular breaks and use proper body mechanics while you sit and type. One program that reminds you to take breaks and guides you through regular stretches is Stretchware (http://www.stretchware.com). There’s a free 30-day demo version and at $29.95 to register, it may save you from expensive doctor’s bills. Being found. If you spend time telling other people where you’ll be and when you’re free to be contacted, why not publish the data on the Web? This way everyone can see your schedule and you can access and update it from any browser. Services like AnyDay (http://www.anyday.com) will do the work for you and will even e-mail people to remind them of meetings. Anniversary reminders. If you’re a person who often forgets birthdays and other important occasions, then let someone else take care of doing the reminding for you. Many portals like Yahoo (http://my.yahoo.com) give you a calendar and will let you record birthdays and other important dates. You’ll receive an e-mail reminder just before the date, so you’re guaranteed not to forget. Reprinted with permission from Smart Computing®, September 2000.