- Browser Tips 'n Tricks Pg. 3 -
As he teaches, so he learns.

It's a fact of life on the Internet that change is the one constant. Your favorite Web pages can disappear as quickly as they appeared in the first place. If you try visiting one of the Web sites you saved in your Favorites list but you see only a message that the page cannot be found, it's likely that it has moved or no longer exists. Before you decide to delete the link, however, you may want to try it later to see if the problem was only temporary.

Another trick is to gradually reduce the URL (starting from the right side, of course) until you come to the dot com or dot org or dot gov (whatever). That way you might still get to the site, just not the exact page you needed (but maybe from the homepage you will be able to again access the needed page.

Passwords float softly about the Internet, like so many secrets wafting over the deepest ocean. Pardon me, I felt the need to wax poetic. In less romantic terms, site accounts are a necessity for any Web surfer; later versions of IE will store and retrieve your login information when you return to the form in question. That's AutoComplete! Remember to turn it OFF when you're not surfing on your own system. Otherwise, you may be exposing yourself to a little privacy problem.

In Navigator, go to Edit/Preferences/Navigator/History, and change the number of days.

In IE, select INTERNET OPTIONS from the TOOLS menu; on the CONTENT tab, click the AUTOCOMPLETE button. Either clear the history after you surf (asking permission first, if necessary). Or turn off the feature entirely for the duration of your session. Prompting may already be turned off, so MAKE SURE you cover your tracks before you walk away. This tip will self-destruct in five seconds.

This is a Personal Toolbar that you can view along with the Location and Navigation toolbars. You should know that it it YOU who decides what's in your Personal Toolbar. That's what your computer is all about; it is YOU who tells it what to do. Now here's how to do it:

1. Press Ctrl+B.

2. In the Bookmarks window that opens, drag any bookmarks you want into the Personal Toolbar Folder.

3. Click on a Navigator window and make sure the Personal Toolbar is showing by opening View, Show, Personal Toolbar.

4. Drag a bookmark out of the Personal Toolbar folder to remove it from your Personal Toolbar or drag a bookmark into the Personal Toolbar folder to add it to the toolbar. You can put an entire folder in there as well--you aren't restricted to one lone bookmark at a time.

5. Close the Manage Bookmarks window when you're done.

   Note: Sometimes new entries do not appear in the personal toolbar until you do something else, such as minimize the Netscape window and then maximize it again.

Of the many on the Internet, one of the best is http://www.anywho.com providing a reverse number lookup as well as neighbors' addresses. Somehow I think that should be illegal.

Plug-ins are software programs that extend the capabilities of the Netscape Browser in a specific way - giving you, for example, the ability to play audio samples or view video movies from within your browser.

If you want a mind numbing look at some file/MIME extensions that are handled by Netscape, click Help, About Plugins.

Open Bookmarks, click to select the first entry, cursor to the last entry and Shift + Click to select all. CTRL + C copies these to the clipboard. Then open your mail program (CTRL + M is the quickest way), and paste these in an outgoing message addressed to yourself. The resulting incoming message can be printed or otherwise saved.

The PWS Personal Web Server that comes free with Windows 98 doesn't just serve up Web pages. PWS is also an FTP server, so it can respond to File Transfer Protocol requests from other computers on a network, sending them copies of the files they want.

Just go to Find, type in PWS, open the file, and follow the instructions (PWS can be installed from there). If you are connected to an intranet, or a corporate network, you can share documents with your coworkers from your own computer. Use PWS to develop and publish your personal home page. You can also test your Web site before you upload it to an Internet service provider.

The Rainbow Colorize feature is a simple HTML trick that would take several minutes and keystrokes to accomplish if Netscape didn't automate it. To use it, create a new page in Netscape Composer. Write some text and select it using the mouse. Click Tools, Character Tools, Rainbow Colorize. Using HTML color values, Netscape will gradually change the color of each letter in your text so the entire selected text appears as a rainbow from left to right.

Viewers will notice this VERY gradual change only with at least five or six words of text. You can click View, Source to see how the HTML does this trick, and then copy it to your editor. Look at it and you will realize that you certainly wouldn't want to do this manually. Whew.

Netscape enables you to see which of the items on your bookmark list have been updated since you last looked at them.

Open the Bookmarks window, then choose View, Updated Bookmarks from the menu in the Bookmarks window. You see a little box asking which bookmarks you want to check. Click the Start Checking button. When Netscape is done checking the Web pages on your bookmark list, it displays a message telling you how many have changed. The icons in the Bookmarks window reveal which pages have changed: The ones with little sparkles have new material, the ones with question marks Netscape isn't sure about, and the ones that look normal haven't changed.

In the eternal hunt for a little more room on your computer display, especially for displaying Web pages, Netscape Navigator has an option: put the toolbars on a diet. If you aren't ready to hide the toolbars altogether, you can still limit the space they take up:

1. Open Edit, Preferences.

2. Choose Appearance.

3. In the Show toolbars as area, choose Pictures Only, or for an even smaller size, choose Text Only.

Now each button will only consist of a few characters, instead of characters plus a graphic image.

The search results from one search engine to another can differ dramatically. Why is that? Because engines use different programs ... called "bots" or "spiders" ... to study and extract listings from Web sites. They may count keywords differently, may follow different levels of detail in the site, may pay more attention to links and popularity.

Not all results differ, though, because some major sites rent their search technology from the same few companies that other sites employ.

*Engines also differ in the way they interpret signals from your entry. For example, what happens when you type more than one word into a search engine (no pluses, minuses, and's nor or's ... no Boolean operators.

Not all engines will react the same way. Yahoo will assume you meant to put an "or" between the words, and so will look for any page that contains any of the words. HotBot assumes you meant to put an "and" between the words, and so will look only for pages that contain all of the words. So you have to know the default assumptions of an engine to make precise searches.

Here's a trick that I know Yahoo uses:

You can restrict your searches to the titles or the URLs of Web pages, and not dip at all into Web page contents. Put a t: before a search word (with no spaces), means only look for this in the title of the page (you need the colon). Put a u: before a search word (no spaces), means only look for this in the URL of the page (you need the colon here too).

IOW (in other words), the prefix t: gives you a different type of return than the u: does. The difference you'll have to see for yourself.

Here is something to keep in mind for all search sites that have both category directories and keyword search (such as Yahoo) to get results with better relevance. You know that when you search for a particular program in the entire site, you probably get lots and lots of results, many of them useless. But click first into the "Software" category � those are the links (sometimes referred to as the "directory"), and then perform the same search, and you should see more relevant results. This should work with any information category, because the search starts with or gives weight to listings within the category.

Let's start by discussing the most basic of searches: simply typing in a word or phrase. If I want to find a certain brand of memory for my computer, I wouldn't have the best luck by simply typing in just the word memory. By doing this, I may eventually get the results I want, but I would also get results about things unrelated to computer memory... like maybe human memories of past events. To make it more specific, I should type in more detail, like the particular brand or type of memory I am looking for, such as Kingston Technology.

Believe it or not, we can fine-tune our search even more. To do this, I can add quotation marks to the search like this: "Kingston Technology." What this does is it looks up the phrase exactly as you type it. For example, if I search for Kingston Technology without the quotes, my results may take me to a page that reads:

"In the town of Kingston they love Technology."

It searched for the words and returned them to me, but it was something completely different than what I was looking. Now, if we add the quotes, it increases our chances of finding the right site. The results will look similar to this:

"Kingston Technology the worldwide leader in memory."

Maybe I am not looking for any particular brand of memory and want to look at all the search results, but know if I just type in memory I will get results I don't need (as discussed above). So in order to leave out words that may come up I can add a "-" (minus) to my search. For example, I could search for "memory -human." This will prevent Google from bringing up any search results that have the word human in them. As you are searching, you can continue to add words that you want to block to help narrow your search.

A common mistake people make is the order in which they type the words. If I want to look for baseball cards, I should type it in as "baseball cards," not as "cards baseball." Google searches for you in the same order that you type in the words. It also does not care about upper or lower case. Typing in "Richard Nixon" or "richard nixon" will give you the same results.

Google doesn't search for every word you type in sometimes. It excludes common words such as "the" and "and." It often doesn't search for single digits that are input. To include these common words or digits in my searches I need to include the "+" (plus) symbol. If I were looking up baseball cards, series 5, I would type it in as "baseball cards version"+5 to include it in my search.

Another command that I can give Google is the OR command. The OR must be uppercase, or Google will see it as a common word and will exclude it (as previously discussed). So, if I am looking for hotels in Iowa for Gnomedex, I could enter in: hotels des moines OR sioux city. This will give me the results with both Des Moines and Sioux City in them.

The last little nugget I have for you is my favorite. Most of the better Webmasters out there include some kind of search within their site. However, if they haven't included one or if it doesn't return the results, you can search their site using Google. To do so, go to the Google home page and enter in what you are looking for, followed by the word "site" and a colon followed by the domain name, like this:

lunsford site:www.lockergnome.com

I hope you enjoyed this short Google guide ... happy hunting.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is built into Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator and works automatically -- you don't have to set it up. All you should do is check to see that you have a secure connection when you're about to send that credit card number. This connection appears as either a change from http:// to https:// on your location bar line, or more likely as a little icon that looks like a padlock on the bottom line of your browser. When you're in secure mode, the padlock is locked; when you're in less secure mode, the padlock is unlocked.

Like most programs, Internet Explorer offers shortcuts -- key combinations you can use instead of clicking menus and buttons. Try these:

Ctrl+E to open the Search menu.

Ctrl+F to open the Find dialog box.

Ctrl+H to open the History list.

Ctrl+I to open the Favorites list.

Ctrl+N to open a new browser window.

Ctrl+O to type in a remote address.

Find a really important Web site? Right-click on the page you like and choose Create Shortcut. A shortcut to the page will appear right on your desktop.

Netscape gives you the power to decide which software upgrades should be installed. This can help you stick with a bug-free (or less buggy, at least) configuration of the program. And it can help you avoid any installations that may have security risks.

1. Open Edit, Preferences.

2. Choose Advanced and under that choose SmartUpdate.

3. Check the box for Require manual confirmation of each install.

4. Choose any unwanted items from the installed list and click the Uninstall button.

5. Click OK when you're done.

Address harvesting programs comb through newsgroup postings and other online forums for e-mail addresses to include in spam lists. One way to stay off such lists is to "munge" your address. Instead of putting your real reply address into your postings, set your e-mail program and browser so that they put an address that's false enough to confound dumb spam programs, but clear to any real person who wants to write you back. For example, dummiesdaily@hold-the-spam.earthlink.net is a good munge. BTW, this tip comes from Dummies Daily

Spanning is WinZip's way of breaking a zipped file into multiple pieces--handy when you're transporting large files via floppy disk. WinZip automatically spans new Zip archives that are created on removable media if the archives become too large for the disk you're using.

To span a file:

1. If you're using the WinZip Classic interface, click the New button. If you prefer the Wizard interface, click Next, select the "Create a new Zip file" radio button, and click Next.

2. Browse to your A: or removable media drive. Enter a name for your archive and select the files to add to the archive. Keep in mind that you can't add files to an archive once you've spanned it. When WinZip runs out of room on the current diskette, it will prompt you for another.

3. Check the box in front of "Erase any existing files on the new disk before continuing" if you'd like WinZip to clean off the diskette for you. Insert the new diskette, click OK, and continue to insert more diskettes if WinZip asks for them.

4. To open a spanned file, insert the last diskette of the file and then open the file within WinZip. The program will prompt you for diskettes as it needs them.

Note that you can add xinzip to your browser to automate many of the processes involved with downloading and unzipping compressed files from the Net, Try the WinZip Internet Browser Support Add-on. Download the add-on, then double-click the installation file; the add-on will install itself automatically.

Once you have the add-on installed, click any link to a zipped file from within Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator. Now WinZip will automatically move the file to your C:/downloads folder and then unzip it so that you can seamlessly access the compressed contents.

As browsers have gotten smarter, they've made it somewhat easier to type Web addresses. Generally you no longer need to type the "http://" part at all. Browsers will just assume that, though they also give you the freedom to type "ftp://" instead if you're looking to connect to a File Transfer site. You can also leave out the "www." and the ".com" in many cases. Not in all, though. Some sites only respond if you include the "www" and some need either the ".com" or the ".net" or another ending. With Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator you can try just typing the central part of the URL name (without the periods on either side) and then pressing Ctrl+Enter to add the www and com.

Internet Explorer does not empty it's cache even after you empty it. Some still remain in a .dat file. To get rid of this file, you need to go into DOS and type: "deltree c:\windows\tempor~1" no quotes, of course.

Navigate to � HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ (by clicking once on the plus signs beside each of these). Once you get to Internet Explorer, doubleclick on "Main" to expand its contents in the right pane....now scroll down til you see "Window Title" and you will see it says "Internet Explorer provided by ". Double click on the words "Window Title" and a box will come up where you can change the title to anything you like.....get creative! Why stick with Internet Explorer? Name it something like "My Personal Browser" or anything you want. Close the Registry Editor.

In Netscape

1. Ctrl-O
2. Start typing or paste new URL

In Internet Explorer

1. Alt-D
2. Right arrow (once)
3. Left arrow to part you wish to change OR
1. Alt-D
2. Start typing or paste new URL

The location of a file is called a URL (or Uniform Resource Locator). URLs are the addresses of files and are key to the Hypertext Markup Language's functionality. Without URLs, HTML would be nothing more than a method for laying out text. You can link a page to another file by specifying the URL as an attribute of certain HTML elements. This capability is what makes the Hypertext in HTML possible.

All right, have you ever smacked into a webpage that was impossible to read because its designer couldn't coordinate colors correctly? Did you know that YOU can do something about it? You can if the background is just a color and not a pattern (seems patterns take precedence over everything). Just paste, withOUT those double quotes:

"javascript: void (document.bgColor = '#000000' )"

Send a webpage via e-mail. - Go to the webpage you wish to send, right-click and choose Send Page or hit the Mail icon and choose Send Page.

Wildcards are those nifty symbols that stand in for something else. In a search engine they mean "look for any word that contains these letters and, where the wildcard symbol is, any other letters. So "do*" (note the asterisk) will search for "do" and "doe" and "doings".

But in some search engines you don't even have to enter a symbol. Every word is assumed to end with a wildcard. So searching on "Flow" will automatically dig up "flowers" and "flowbee" and any number of other words.

This helps you catch things closely related to your term, but also burdens you with lots of irrelevant results. If you have too many of the "irrels" � go back and put your search term inside quotation marks: that will generally rid you of the assumed wildcard.

Google is the world's most popular search engine, with more than 150 million queries per day and more than fourteen million users per week. Here is some good clicking advice. Often, new Google searches are launched on the search results page, on the heels of a previous search. In those instances, your previous keywords appear in the keyword box and you need to supplant them with one or more new keywords. In Windows, double-click a single word to highlight it; then type a new word right over it or delete the word by pressing the Delete key. This tip works even with words that are mashed up against search operator with no spaces, like this -- "geocities:buddy" (sans quotes). Double-clicking buddy highlights that word alone.

Just as useful, triple-clicking in the keyword box highlights the entire search string. Highlighting previous keywords in the Google Toolbar works differently. A single-click in the keyword box highlights the entire string. (This happens on only the first single-click; subsequent single-clicks deselect the string and then do nothing.) A double-click selects a single word, whereas triple-clicking does nothing.