Internet Tips n Tricks
This is the page for internet tips and will updated weekly as we add loads more for you. This page was set up for beginners, in fact there is no such thing. If you cant spend a lot of time in front of your pc then you don't get the chance to learn the little tricks that we get hold of and have mastered over the years. Some of you advanced user like myself may find this section useful as well as when I was doing the page I came across 2 additions I got hold of from a friend I was not aware of and will be using now. So alas as I say here is a few tips and I hope it is of use to you at some point. Click on the orange txt header and it will take you right the part of how to do it.
Control the folder or drive that Windows Explorer opens to. Make Internet Explorer yours once again! Switch back to your original homepage. Use your keyboard to navigate the web. Learn how to get rid of auto completes. The trick to faster downloads. Find web sites you've visited previously through your history. Get rid of that annoying network logon screen in Windows. Want to be able to know when you're accepting cookies? Stop annoying animations or background sounds while browsing. Have you ever wondered when a site was last updated? The dreaded 404 error - file not found. Get rid of the Homepage Hijackers!
Control the folder or drive that Windows Explorer opens to. Ever wish you could control the folder or drive that Windows Explorer opens to? Well, you can and here's how: Right-click
the Desktop and select New, Shortcut. In the command line box, put in one of the commands below: 1. To have this shortcut open Explorer with focus on the My Documents folder, use this in the command line (probably a good idea to copy and paste the line): explorer /e,/n,/root, c:\My Documents NOTE: XP users will need to insert your user name for a My Documents shortcut. Your command line needs to look like this: explorer.exe /e,/n,/root, C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR USER NAME\My Documents 2. If you would like to just have focus on the C: drive, use the line below: explorer /e,/n,/root, c:\ 3. If you would like the shortcut to open to a "My Computer" view, use this line: (Note - if you right-click My Computer and select Explore from the resulting menu, you'll get the same effect. This is quicker though) explorer /n,/e,/root,,/select,C:\ NOTE: you can put in any path you like where you see the "C:\" at the end of the line. You could set up Explorer shortcuts for any frequently used folders and or drives. Once you've decided on the command line, click Next and name the shortcut (something like "Explore My Stuff" or Explore My Docs") and click the Finish button You are probably familiar with Windows (a/k/a MSN) Messenger, which is used for Instant Messaging. Did you know that Windows XP has another program called Messenger that is used in networks to transmit and send Alerter service messages between clients and servers? Even though you'll never use it unless you are on a network, by default it is turned on, causing an open hole in your XP firewall for pop-up advertising to get through. You have probably received these pop-ups trying to sell you software to stop them. Guess what? You can stop them yourself! Here's what to do if you want to stop Messenger... Go to Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Services (or Start / Run and type in "services.msc"). This will bring up a long list of Windows services that ar running or available on your system. Find "Messenger" and double click to open the Properties box. In the "Startup Type" field, change the setting to "Manual". You could choose "Disable", but if any services depend on Messenger they will fail to start, so you're better off playing it safe. Click OK to save changes. Make Internet Explorer yours once again! If you’ve ever used AOL or bought a computer from Compaq, you’ve already seen how the title bar in Internet Explorer can be changed but did you know that YOU can actually change the default title yourself to whatever you want it to be? Changing the title is a simple process that only requires you to change one ‘key’ in your registry. The standard disclaimers apply: don’t ever add random keys to your registry or delete keys unless you really, really know what you’re doing. Let’s get to it! Run the Registry Editor by opening the Start menu and selecting Run. Type “regedit” and click OK. Hit F3 to bring up the search menu and type “window title.” That should take you to the following key: KEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main If the search doesn’t find anything, navigate to the above key by clicking in the left-hand side of the Registry Editor. If the key exists, simply double click on the words Window Title. In the window that pops-up, edit the Value Data to whatever you want your default title to be. If there is no Window Title, you’ll need to create it. In the Edit menu, select New and String Value. Change the Name to “Window Title” and then set the Value Data. Close and restart Internet Explorer, and there you go! You know the drill. You land on a web page with this gigantic picture. You really want to see the whole thing, but alas, it seems the only way is to use your scroll bars. Sure, you could buy a bigger monitor, better video card, then crank up your resolution, but there's just gotta be a cheaper way, right? As long as you're using the current version of Internet Explorer 6, you have an "Image Resize" component available to you! Doesn't that just make your skin tingle? Here's how it works: If you're viewing an image with Internet Explorer, it will automatically resize the image to fit in your browser. Now, this will NOT resize an image that's already embedded in a web page, it just works on regular images. So, how do we get this whole thing to work? You need to make Internet Explorer display just the image, not the entire web page. That's actually a ton easier than it sounds. Here's the "how to": For non-linked images - If the image you're trying to see is NOT linked to another web page (i.e. if you click it and it doesn't take you to another page), just drag and drop the image to your Internet Explorer address bar. The image will be displayed all by itself and within the confines of your window. For linked images - This one is just a tad trickier. See, if you drag a linked image to the address bar, Internet Explorer will navigate to the link and not the image. So, what do you do? In this case, just right-click the image and select Properties from the resulting screen. Double-click the address on the resulting screen to highlight it. Now, just copy and paste to the address bar. Poof! (Again, it really won't make that sound.) The image is there for the viewing. Bonus Trick! Here's another cool use for this tip. Say you have a graphic sitting on your desktop or in a folder (GIF or JPEG). You can open Internet Explorer and drag and drop the image to the address bar or main window - it'll pop right open. It's a great way to see an image without taking the time to open your graphics program. A plug-in is a small application that works with your browser to display certain types of web media. For example, some web sites use Shockwave to allow you to play interactive games. However, in order to play these games, you need to have a Shockwave plug-in. Oh, if you want to check out some of these games, head to: http://www.shockwave.com/sw/games/arcade/ How do you know which plug-ins you're going to need? Don't worry about it. When you get to a site that requires one, your plug-in will either run automatically or, if you don't have it, there will be instructions for getting it. For the most part, newer browsers come with the most common plug-ins. You may need to update to the latest version from time to time, but that's an almost automatic procedure too. Switch back to your original homepage. Is your Internet Explorer homepage wrong? Don't know how it got switched, but now your normal homepage is gone and you have this new one in its place? Actually, it's very easy to get your old homepage back- assuming you know what the address was to your original homepage. Open Explorer and head to your old homepage. Once there, click the Tools menu, Internet Options. A tabbed screen will pop up with the General tab selected. Click the "Use Current" button That should switch your homepage back. This seems to happen a lot, usually due to an underhanded tactic of some unscrupulous site. What they do is put a line of code in the web page that generates a pop up box asking you if you want to set their site for your homepage. In order to actually get you to say yes, they'll put some kind of message in that same box to "trick" you into saying yes to them - hoping you'll miss the part about getting your homepage switched. So, be sure to read carefully. Oh, one last thing - if you really like your current homepage, place it in your Favorites folder. That way, should your homepage accidentally get changed, at least you'll be able to get back to it easily. Sometimes a custom homepage URLs can be long and complicated, so this is a good way to "back up" your homepage. Use your keyboard to navigate the web. OK, I'm not sure how useful these tricks will be in the overall scheme of things, but I kinda like them :-) If you're using either Netscape or Explorer, you can go back / forward via the keyboard. Just hold down your ALT key and use the arrows. Oh, you can also use ALT with the "Home" key to skip back to your homepage with Explorer. Learn how to get rid of auto completes. By default, newer versions of Internet Explorer can automatically "remember" stuff you've filled in on web forms (including passwords). Well, if you've ever entered the wrong item, you know what a pain it can be. Every time you fill in a form, you get multiple choices from the little auto-complete drop box, but only one (usually the one at the bottom of the list) is the correct one. How do you shed the excess? Depends on how far you want to go with it. If you just want a word or two gone, next time you see one in the auto-complete drop box, arrow down to it and press your Delete key. If you want to clear the whole thing out, you can do that too. Open Internet Explorer, hit the Tools menu, Internet Options. Next, click the Content Tab, then the AutoComplete button. On the resulting screen, click the "Clear Forms" button to clear out web form info and the "Clear Passwords" button to get rid of any password info you have stored. Sidebar
Note that
this does not get rid of the web addresses in your address bar. Go to the
General tab of the Internet Options screen and hit Clear History
to do that. Finally, if you want to shut this feature off (or turn it on) you can do so from the AutoComplete screen too. Just check or un-check the appropriate boxes. The trick to faster downloads. Let's say you want to download a program and you're offered several different places to download from (Microsoft likes to do this). Which do you pick? Most people would choose the one that's closest to their geographic location. WRONG! Here's the way I usually decide. I first look at the time zones the sites are in and hit the one that would be in the least busy time zone. In other words, if it's 8:00AM in my time zone, but 5:00AM in another, more westerly time zone, I'll pick that one. If it looks like I'm in prime time no matter what time zone I'm in (say it's 3:00PM my time) then I'll probably pick the last or second to last choice. People seem to pick the first or second link, so usually the further down the "link list" you go, the less traffic you encounter. Find web sites you've visited previously through your history. Have you ever been looking for a page on a particular web site and haven't been able to find it? You may know the site name (www.sitename.com) but the page name eludes you. Well, with Internet Explorer, you can type in just the name of the site, like www.sitename (note you don't really need the ".com" part) then hit your down arrow. A list of all the pages you've visited on the site will be displayed. Get rid of that annoying network logon screen in Windows. Do you get an annoying network logon screen every time you boot Windows? Well, here's a way that *should* get rid of it for you. Please note that if you have your computer set up for multiple users, this tip isn't for you. Additionally, if you are on a network and a password is required to get onto your network, this little trick probably won't work (if no password is required, then you *should* be OK, but check with your network administrator first). Everyone else should be fine. If you're still with me, here's how to rid yourself of that annoying logon screen: 1. Click Start, Settings, Control Panel 2. Next, open the Network Icon. 3. Finally, change the item in the Primary Network Logon drop down box to "Windows Logon". It's probably a good idea to write down whatever was in the "Primary Network Login" box before you change it. Just in case... That's it. You should no longer have a logon screen pop up when you start Windows Want to be able to know when you're accepting cookies? Want to prevent cookies or at least have your computer warn you before it accepts them? Well, here's a tip that will help :-) First, my advice. I recommend that if you are worried about cookies to set the browser prompt you before accepting them. In my "humble" opinion, it's not a good idea to shut them off altogether. Cookies are about the only way a site can recognize you. If you do any online shopping, have sites that store your passwords, or have a page that is set up for you based on your preferences, you'll lose all that if you disable cookies. That's my 2 cents worth, here's how to set your browser to prompt you before accepting cookies or to disable them altogether: With Internet Explorer (5.0 +): Click your Tools menu, Internet Options. Click your Security tab and click the "Custom Level" button. You'll find an option for either disabling cookies or having the computer prompt you before taking them. With Netscape 6 Head to the Edit menu, Preferences. On the resulting screen, head to the Advanced menu, Cookies. You'll find an option for either disabling cookies or having the computer prompt you before taking them. Stop annoying animations or background sounds while browsing. Have you ever landed on a web page that was chuck full of annoying animations and / or background sounds? These kind of sites can annoy even the most tolerant of us. If the page has something you need to read, it makes it just that much worse. What can you do? Simple - hit the Stop button on your web browser. The animations and background songs should cease. Have you ever wondered when a site was last updated? Have you
ever been on a web site and wondered when it was last updated? Anyhow, if you want to find out when a particular page was last updated, head to the page and type (or copy and paste) the following line into your address bar: javascript:alert(document.lastModified) (Note - your browser must be java-enabled in order to do this little trick. That should be 99.99% of you.) OK, that's all well and good, but unless you're a web page designer, chances are you're not going to remember how to do that a month from now. So, what can you do? Add it to your favorites. Now, this is not nearly as easy as it sounds. If you just try adding it to your favorites, you'll find that it doesn't work, you get the web page you're visiting instead. So, here's a workaround (this is for Internet Explorer, BTW): 1. Add a web page to your favorites. It doesn't matter what page it is. When the "Add to favorites" screen pops up, re-name the page "Last Update" (no quotes) or something similar. 2. Now,
click your Favorites menu and find the favorite you just added. 3. Finally, put the line below in place of the current URL: javascript:alert(document.lastModified) You'll probably get an error message when you change it. Just hit "Yes" if this pops up. That should do it. Click the "Last Update" favorite anytime you're on a page and want to know when it was last updated. The dreaded 404 error - file not found. We've all been there. We're surfing along the web and see a site that looks like it has just the information we've been looking for. With a little spring in our finger, we tap the left mouse button and click the link. Then it happens. The dreaded 404 error - file not found. Before you start getting all teary-eyed, check out the URL for there may yet be a glimmer of hope! When you
click the link, you get a 404 error. Maybe the page When you get to the directory page (assuming it has an index.htm page in it) you may see a link to your missing page. If the above still doesn't work, try dropping the next section so you just have the main site page: Hopefully, if the page (computing.htm) is still there, you can navigate to it from there. (Note that it was a made up page and it's not really on this site.) Get rid of the Homepage Hijackers! We get e-mail from people all the time telling us that their homepage has been changed without their permission (Internet Explorer). Most of the time, a quick trip to the Tools menu, Internet Options will let you reset the page. However, sometimes it's an even bigger problem. Some folks find that each time they re-boot their computer, their homepage switches back to the unwanted one and no amount of screaming seems to help. What's going on? How did their web browser get hijacked? There are several ways this can happen, both for a simple homepage change and the nastier, seemingly permanent change. First, some web pages will ask you if you want to make them your homepage. If you hit Yes, then it's a done deal. After all, you can't be too surprised that your homepage was changed after you told your browser it was OK. However - Some will modify this question to something like "Do you like freebies?". When you hit Yes, it secretly changes your homepage on you. Most of the time, the same dialog box that's asking you if you like freebies (or whatever) will also say something to the effect that it's going to reset your homepage. They try to distract you from that message and just get you to click "Yes". So, be careful. Fortunately, when your homepage is switched in the ways outlined above, going to the Tools Menu, Internet Options will let you set your page back to whatever you want (of course, you'll need to know the address of your homepage). Normally, that takes care of the problem and you're back to normal again. Another way your homepage can get switched is through a security hole in IE5 (yeah, I know, imagine that). As long as you keep your browser up to date, this shouldn't be a problem though. If it does get switched through this security hole, it's my understanding that generally a script is placed in the Startup menu (Start button, Programs, Startup) that will reset the homepage each time Windows loads. Deleting it should let you switch back your homepage permanently. Oh, and make sure you update IE if you aren't in the habit of doing it. That's one nasty little security hole! Finally, software can even be a problem. Some programs will load automatically when you start windows and the first thing they do is to reset your homepage. You may be able to disable this though their options area (don't hold your breath though). Best bet is to disable or get rid of any program you catch doing this. OK, but if it is a program that's switching your homepage, how do you figure out which one it is? Well, if your browser's homepage was reset to the homepage of a particular software company (who's software you just installed), you probably aren't going to expend too much mental energy figuring out who done it. If you have no clue where the homepage in question came from, then look back on recently installed programs. Did your homepage change right after you installed a particular program? If so, you may have a place to start looking. Seems that most of the time, these type of programs run from the Startup folder (mentioned above). So, if you see something in there that shouldn't be (or you're not sure), you may want to remove the item, reset your homepage back to one you actually want (like www.worldsite.com :-), then see if it stays. Oh, one last thing - watch out for install programs too. Some of them have an option for resetting your homepage that's checked or selected by default (you know, for your convenience).
It happens to all of us. We're surfing along, and up comes an error (usually 404). What do all those error codes mean? Here's a quick rundown of the most common: 400 - Bad Request - You probably typed in a URL wrong, the server has no clue what you're looking for, or you aren't allowed to have access. Usually, it's a matter of the URL being typing in wrong. Maybe you mixed upper and lowercase letters or something. 401- Unauthorized Request - you tried to get to something on the web server you're not allowed to play with. In other words, you ain't on the party list. 403 - Forbidden - You can't access the page. You may not have access (it may require a password), or it may be blocked from your domain. 404- Not Found - The page you were trying to look at was not found on the server. This is probably the most common error you'll come across. What has probably happened is that the web page you were going to has been removed or re-named. 500 - Internal error - Usually caused by a CGI error. You fill out a form, but the script used to process it is not working properly. 503 - Service Unavailable - The server may be overloaded, down, or have other similar problems. Try later. I've put together what I feel are the best ways to get rid of pop-up windows if you do not want to download or purchase software to stop them: 1. The Escape Key - When the pop up windows just keep coming, pounding on the Escape key repeatedly will stop the madness. How does it work? When you hit the Escape key, it's the same as hitting the Stop button in your browser. So, the little buggers stop loading and you can close them. I like this method the best since it is a quick, one keystroke deal. 2. ALT-F4 - This is another good way to get rid of pop-ups. ALT-F4 closes the current window, effectively stopping the pop-up process in its digital tracks. 3. CTRL-W If you don't like ALT-F4 (it's kind of a stretch for small hands) then try CTRL-W. This closes things down, too. Finally, there are programs out there - pop-up killers - that you may be interested in. They are designed to stop these pop-up windows or visit our forum and look under the cyber safety and pc security section for links to downloads for free. Search for "pop-up killers" and you'll get a nice selection to choose from.
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