Advice and guidance to get more out of the Internet

Advice and guidance to get more out of the Internet.

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These Tips and Tricks contain valuable advice and guidance to help you solve PC problems and get the best out of your PC. They are updated and added to regularly, so come back here soon. You can add your own tips by e-mailing them to us. We'll credit you for them and add a link to your website. Just click .

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Your Favorites Folder

If your Favorites folder gets too cluttered up, you can manage it more easily from Windows Explorer than from the Organise Favorites dialog, especially if you're moving or renaming many entries. In Windows XP press Shift while selecting Favorites > Organise to open Explorer at your own Favorites folder.
There are useful accessories for Internet Explorer, including an option to zoom in and out of any image on a web page, available from www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/previous/webaccess/ie5wa.asp.

Using Quick Links

This is a great alternative to your Favorites folder, which can quickly become crowded. If your Links toolbar is not visible, go to View > Toolbars > Links, unlock the Toolbars first if necessary, and tick Links.
Click on the arrows and you'll get a drop-down menu of links. To place a web page in your Links folder just drag the URL onto the Links bar from your Address bar.

Convert Your Address Book Into A Text File

You can do this in Outlook Express by going to File > Export > Address Book. Highlight "Text File (comma separated value)". Click the Export button and save in a file of your choice. You can now open the file in Word or WordPad, edit it and print it. You can save it to a floppy as an off-machine back-up.
If you're afraid of email viruses that send themselves out to all the addresses in your address book, then why not consider emptying it and instead keeping all email addresses in a separate text file?
It's less convenient, but at least it makes sure you don't have viruses passing themselves on to your friends or business associates.
Better still, of course, is to keep your virus definitions up to date and your anti-virus software active at all times.

eBay Toolbar

If you are a regular visitor to eBay you will be interested in this. You can install your own eBay toolbar into your web browser absolutely fr*ee. This lets you search eBay and check auctions on all items and the bids placed on them. There's an alert function for the end of auctions that you're interested in (you don't have to be connected to the internet at the time) and many other features. It works with Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4 onwards, and Netscape Navigator 4.08 onwards. Download it from http://pages.ebay.com/ebay_toolbar .

Privacy When Sharing

If you share your PC you should keep your credit card details out of the Temporary Internet Files folder. Do this by going to Tools > Internet Options > Advanced > Security and turn on 'Do not save encrypted page to disk'. No longer will pages with 'https' in the title be stored.

Back Up Your Outlook Express Address Book

If your hard disk crashed or you had to reformat it without warning you'd lose all your data if it hadn't been backed up regularly. Most data files are quite easy to back up, but what about your e-mail address book. If you use Microsoft's Outlook Express, here's how to back it up. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book. Check for a file with a .WAB extension. Back this up like any other file, to another drive, preferably a floppy disk.

Faster Surfing

If you don't have broadband this is for you. You can speed up the opening of web pages when you click a link in an email message or document by instructing Internet Explorer to use a window that's open already. Go to Tools > Options > Advanced and select 'Reuse windows for launching shortcuts'.

Get Rid of Branding on IE and Outlook Express

If your Internet Explorer browser was provided by an ISP or on CD-ROM by a commercial organisation, it may have their name displayed in the title bar, and perhaps their logo as well.
To get rid of this, close your browser and go to Start > Run. In the dialog box type rundll32 iedkcs32.dll, Clear. Click on OK. That should have got rid of the offending branding, but if there is any sign left then do the following.
Make sure your browser and Outlook Express are closed. Go to Start > Run and type regedit in the box and click OK. This will open your Windows Registry Editor. Navigate to HKEY_CURENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar and delete all items relating to BrandBitmap and SmBrandBitmap, BigBitmap and SmallBitmap.
Then navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main and delete all references to BigBitmat and SmallBitmap. That should ensure you've seen the last of the offending items.

Managing Email

If you receive a lot of email that you actually want to keep, your Inbox can become so full that you find it difficult to locate individual messages.
To overcome this problem you can create additional folders. Write down on paper the names of the folders you wish to create, eg Business, Classifieds, Special, Training, and so on.
Then with "Folders" highlighted, click on File > New and type in the name of the first new folder. Click OK and it appears in alphabetical order in your folders list.
When you've created all your new folders, simply go through your email messages and click on the headings of those you wish to move to another folder. Drag them onto the name of the new folder and release.

Using WS-FTP

When you upload your web pages to your ISP's server, if you use WS-FTP, don't forget you can set it to automatically display in the left hand pane the folder where you keep them on your hard drive. This saves you having to navigate to the correct folder each time. Just click on the Startup tab and enter the settings for the Initial Remote Site Folder and the Initial Local Folder. In the local and remote file masks boxes, you can set these to display, eg, only HTML files by entering the command *.htm,*.html (if you have files with both extensions, otherwise just enter the extension you have). This avoids displaying other types of file, if they exist in the folder, that you wouldn't want to upload.

Alternative to WS_FTP

WS_FTP is a brilliant program, but it does mean you have to upload each page that you have updated. There's another program called SitePublisher that you can use instead. With this, you simply make the changes to your pages, find your local and remote directories, and click on "Synchronize". It automatically finds the files you've changed and transfers them to the server. You could make changes on every page on your site and upload them with one click. It's at http://www.sitepublisher.net/

Security Online

If you receive an email warning about a virus and telling you to delete a file, it's probably a hoax! Check it out by going to www.sarc.com/avcenter/hoax.html
We've had viruses and hackers to contend with for years. More recently we've had spyware, adware and Trojans. And, of course, we've always had spam.
Now there are two new threats - phishing and spoofing.
Phishing is the name given to the practice of luring you to a fake website in order to obtain your PIN's, passwords, and credit card details.
Spoofing exploits (yet another) loophole in Internet Explorer so a fake site displays an authentic-looking web address.
So you receive an email purporting to come from someone like PayPal (I've had two of these myself lately), Visa or American Express. This will have the appropriate logo and official-sounding wording, web address and contact details.
The message typically says your account needs updating in some way and asks you to click on a link to take you to the company's website. When you click the link you arrive on what looks like the proper website with the address displayed in your address bar.
And guess what? You'll be asked to "re-enter" all your account details.
You will actually be on the thief's website that has been made to look like the real thing, even to the extent of having only that part of the web address that relates to the real website displayed. The rest of the address, leading to the thief's website, is concealed.
One way of defeating this type of activity is always to have your email settings set to read all your messages in plain text. In Outlook Express, go to Tools > Options and click the Read tab. Check "Read all messages in plain text".
This will cause the full URL to be displayed to you and you will see that it is a fake site.
If you don't want to have to read your messages in plain text just because of the activities of these fraudsters, be very careful when at any site which requies your PIN, password or credit card number.
If you receive an email address like this then don't click on the link, but type the web address into your address bar yourself. If the message was genuine you'll see confirmation at the site.

Internet Explorer's AutoComplete

This facility is intended to benefit you by automatically completing URLs in the address bar and usernames and passwords when you fill in forms online.
But what if you want to delete the URL, password, etc, for security or other reasons? To delete an AutoComplete entry, go to the website concerned and type in the entry. When a list of options pops up, highlight the entry you want to delete, and press the delete key on your keyboard. Click on Yes to confirm, and that's it.
Sometimes AutoComplete stops asking if you want to save entries, and just saves them anyway. To regain control, go to Tools > Internet Options and select the Contents tab. Click the AutoComplete button and check the 'Prompt me to save passwords' box. Click twice on OK and you've got control back.

Color-Coding Your Email Messages

This tip can make it easier for you to find messages from a particular person or group of friends in your Inbox.
Click Tools > Message Rules > Mail, and select the New button. Check the boxes "Where the From Line Contains People", under Conditions, and "Highlight it with Color" under Actions.
In the Rule Descriptions box check "Contains People" and enter your friend's email address or name. Then click "Color" and choose a color. Click Apply Now, OK, OK. OK.

Getting Internet Explorer to Open Full Size

If you're fed up with Internet Explorer always opening in a much reduced size window then try one of these methods to make it open full size, or very nearly so.
Hold down Ctrl+Shift+Alt while using the mouse to drag the sides of the window to fill the whole screen, then, keeping the keys pressed, click the Close icon.
Alternatively, resize the window and then hold down the Ctrl key while clicking on the Close icon.
Or drag the sides of a newly opened window in IE to the edges of the screen and then go to File > Close. Press F5, click the icon to open IE and the new window should open full size.
Autosizer is a freeware utility that works with any Windows application, and will ensure your windows open to the size you want every time. Download it from http://www.southbaypc.com/AutoSizer/

Find Your IP Address

If you ever need to know your IP address you can find it by going to Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt. Type ipconfig/all
If you regularly download audio and video files and you use Windows Media Player, you'll want to stop it from sending to download sites information that identifies your copy of it. In Windows Media Player go to Tools > Options and select the Player tab. Disable the option that reads, 'Allow Internet sites to uniquely identify your player'.

New Windows for Search Results

When using a search engine to do some research online, hold down the Shift key when clicking on any of the web pages you're presented with. This will open the page in a new window. Then when you want to return to the search engine results page you just close the new window. Much quicker than navigating your way back to the results page from several layers further down.

Using Acrobat Reader

Adobe Acrobat Reader is an integral part of the internet and probably the most commonly used application to view ebooks downloaded from the internet. It's the format chosen by thousands of ebook authors. So here are a few tips on how to use it better.
Before you click a link, note the page number you are on, as when you return you may find yourself back at the beginning of the document (or you could hold down the Shift key while clicking the link, to open a new window). Go to another page by entering the number of it in the page display at the bottom of the page, or press Ctrl + N for the page number window. Increase or decrease magnification with Ctrl + (plus) and Ctrl - (minus).

More on Acrobat Reader

While we're on Acrobat Reader, you can speed up the opening process by removing the splash screen. Go to Edit > Preferences > Options, and uncheck Display Splash Screen. Check Display PDF in Browser and Allow Background Downloading. This will let you read the first part of a document while the rest downloads, rather than having to wait until it all downloads before you can start reading.

Controlling Spam

Unwanted commercial emails, some of them pushing highly objectionable material, are the scourge of the internet, and can waste many hours of your time. Spam filters are unreliable as they can easily delete emails you want to receive, such as newsletters.
Outlook Express has a facility for deleting spam from your server, so they never download in the first place. But you do have to spend some time typing out a list of words commonly found in the headings of spam.
Go to Tools > Message Rules > Mail. Select the Mail Rules tab and click on New. In Box 1 (Select the conditions for your rule) tick the box next to "Where the Subject line contains specific words" and in Box 2 (Select the Actions for your rule) tick the box next to "Delete it from server".
Type each word or phrase, clicking on Add each time to add it to the list. Click OK, Apply Now, and OK again.

Controlling Your History

Maximise your online privacy by restricting the number of days Internet Explorer keeps in your History folder to one. Click on Tools > Internet Options, and press the General tab. Set the Days to keep pages in history to 0. While you're there, you might want to set your Home page to Blank, which speeds up the launch of your browser while you decide which site to visit.

Check the Source Code in Outlook Express

If you receive HTML email and want to see the source code, eg to see how special effects are produced, just click the message whose source you wish to see and press Ctrl + F2. This opens Notepad and displays the HTML code in a temporary file. Alternatively, right-click the header and select Properties, Details, Message Source. Resize the window to suit.

More on Privacy for XP Users

Did you know that Windows Media Player for XP (or Version 7.1) sends a GUID (globally unique indentifier) to sites where you request media files? Is this another example of Big Brother watching you? Maybe. Of course, this GUID may never be traced back to your PC. But then again it just might be. So why not simply disable it? You can do this quite easily. Launch your Windows Media Player, click on Tools > Options, and uncheck the box next to "Allow Internet sites to uniquely identify your player."
And don't forget, when online, pressing F11 toggles your view between full screen and the standard Windows view.

Modem Noise

Does your modem make too much noise when it dials up to the internet? Go to Control Panel and double-click on the modems icon. Select the General tab and highlight the entry for your modem. Click on the Properties tab and again select the General tab. There you'll find the speaker slider in the middle.

Multiple Email Messages in Outlook Express:

If you constantly send the same email message, or block of text, rather than re-typing it each time you can write it out just once and save it in the body of a blank email message stored in the Drafts folder.
Next time you need to use it, just select the message, highlight it, press Ctrl + C to copy it, and Ctrl + V to paste it.

Internet Radio

In Internet Explorer 5 and up, select View > Toolbars > Radio to have a radio button appear in your browser. Click it and select your radio station from the whole world.

Virus Hoaxes

Like the real world, the Internet is full of hoaxes. If you receive an email from someone you don't know warning you about a supposed virus and advising you to delete a file in your Windows folder, then it's probably a hoax.
But how can you be sure? And it's best to be sure before deleting any such files, as usually they are important system files, without which your PC won't function properly.
The best way of checking is to type the name of the file into your favourite search engine (I always use Google). Any of the leading results should tell you everything you need to know about the file and whether it should be deleted or not.

Customise Your Home Page

You can make your own home page so that when you start up your browser it opens a page with links to all your favourite sites. If you have a web site, even a free one, you can upload the page to the server. If not, just make a web page and store it on your own hard drive. If you use Internet Explorer, go to the Tools menu, select Options and take the General tab. Type in the address on the WWW or your hard drive to select your Home Page and click on OK.

Getting a Full Screen

To get a full screen free of the Internet Explorer toolbar and Start menu bar just press F11. This is a toggle that switches the view between normal and full, so press it again to get back to normal view. To get the Start menu bar back just press Ctrl + Esc or WinKey.

Managing Newsgroups

Newsgroups are one of the most useful aspects of the Internet, but some people are put off by the sheer number of newsgroups and the number of messages that Outlook Express downloads by default.
Decide which newsgroups you want to subscribe to by going to Tools > Newsgroups, in Outlook Express (or press Ctrl W) and entering a relevant word in the box that reads "Display newsgroups which contain:". Highlight each one that you may be interested in and click on the Subscribe button.
Each newsgroup you have subscribed to will be listed in the Folders column of Outlook Express. Go to Tools > Options and select the Read tab. Amend the News setting to download no more than, say, 50 headers at a time. Go online and select each newsgroup in turn. The headers of the selected number of most recent messages posted to that group will be downloaded. Click on each header where you wish to download the full message.
Threads have a plus sign next to them. Click on that sign to open the thread and download those messages too. You can then review the messages at your leisure offline.

Find it Fast at Microsoft

The Microsoft site is so huge that you could easily spend hours on it. In fact I sometimes go to their site just for the fun and knowledge it will give me, and always spend far too much time there. But trying to find something specific there is often time consuming and difficult. So it's useful to know that there's a shortcut in the form of a search engine that Google has developed specifically for searching the Microsoft site. Find it at http://www.google.com/microsoft.html.

Multi-Windows

Using more than one window when you surf the net can save time and make it easier. To do this, click on File > New > Window (or "Navigator Window"), or press Ctrl N.

Spam Busting

If you're getting a lot of spam, and you use Outlook Express, instead of immediately deleting it, make a note of where it's coming from, or any commonly used headings.
Probably a substantial amount comes from just one or two addresses, or has a common word or phrase in the heading. In Outlook Express, go to Tools > Message Rules > Blocked Senders List.
There you can make rules that will have much of your spam sent straight to your Deleted Items folder without you having to do anything. Be careful, though, not to make your rules too wide so as to hand out the same treatment to legitimate mail that you want to read.

Shorter Addresses

This works with Internet Explorer 5 and above. Save hours in your online activities. How to go to a ".com" site without typing W - W - W. Simply type the name, e.g. "microsoft"" in the address line then hold down the Ctrl and then Enter key - this will put in all the www's and the .com in for you.

Organising QuickLaunch Toolbar Icons

In Internet Explorer 5 and up you can use the links bar as a quick step to your favourite sites. Make sure it's available by selecting View > Toolbars > Links. To add new links just go to a site that you want quick access to and click on the "E" logo next to the page title in the address bar and drag and drop it onto the Links bar. To remove or rename a link just right-click on it and select the appropriate option.

Outlook Express Recycle Bin

When you delete messages in Outlook Express they simply go the the program's own Recycle Bin, so doing that doesn't free any hard disk space. Nor does it prevent deleted messages from being accessed by others who may use your PC, and even being replaced in your Inbox. So instruct Outlook Express to empty its Recycle Bin every time it is closed. Select Options from the Tools menu, and choose the General tab. Put a tick in the checkbox next to "Empty messages from the deleted items folder on exit".

Sending Photographs

Here's how to send a photograph in the actual message of an email, rather than as an attachment. If you use Outlook or Outlook Express, make sure you're able to send HTML messages (and that the recepient of the message can receive them). Start your new message and go to the Format menu to make sure "Rich Text (HTML)" is selected. When you come to where you want the picture to be inserted click on the "Insert Picture" icon and use the Browse button to locate the image file. It will appear just as the receipient will see it. Finish your message and send as per usual.

Customise Your Outlook Express Toolbar

You can change the default toolbar on Outlook Express, and add or remove icons by right-clicking into an empty area of the toolbar and selecting Customise. Select the buttons you want from the left pane and click Add, or select the buttons you want removed from the right pane and click Remove.
Adjust the order in which the buttons appear by clicking on the Up and Down buttons.

Know Your Shortcuts

If you use Outlook Express for email and Internet Explorer for browsing web pages you can print out a handy list of shortcuts for each program. In Outlook Express, open the Help file index and enter "shortcuts". The page displayed can be printed out on a single sheet of A4 paper. You can find Explorer shortcuts in the same way.

Adding a Sender to your Address Book

Do you want to place a new contact in your Outlook Express Address Book? Just right-click on the message and select "Add Sender to Address Book". What about placing him in a specific group? Just double-click on the group name and click on "Select members". Then select the name from the list that appears and then the right-arrow to add him to that group.

Speed Up Your Dial-Up Networking Connection To The Internet

When Windows is installed the default settings in Dial-Up Networking (the programme that controls your access to the Internet) are configured for local area network use. If you are using your PC as a stand-alone machine the settings need altering. Go into Dial-Up Networking from My Computer and right-click on your ISP entry. Choose Properties and select the Server Types tag. The only boxes that should be checked are Enable Software Compression in the Advanced Options box and TCP/IP in the Allowed Network Protocols box. Uncheck anything else, and your dial-up connection will be speeded up considerably.

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Google Catalogs

There's a new method of searching that Google is testing. Go to http://catalogs.google.com and click on one of the categories. You'll be able to browse through images of scores of mail-order catalogues or go straight to the company's home page or online store. Great for hard-to-find or unusual electronic gadgets, fashion and health care products.

Changing Your Home Page on Internet Explorer

If you're fed up with always opening your Internet surfing with the home page of Microsoft or your ISP, and want to open with a site that you visit regularly, just go to the View menu and select Internet Options. Under the General tab you will see the URL of the home page, the site that your browser always opens first each time you log onto the Internet. In the Home Page field at the top, enter the address of the site that you wish to open with each time.

Speed Up Internet Explorer

Why not make Internet Explorer open even faster by going to Tools > Internet options, and selecting the General tab and click on "Use Blank".
Open a new window by holding the Shift key down before clicking on a link. If you want to go back to the previous page you don't have to wait for it to reload. Ctrl + N does the same thing.
Refresh the page fast by pressing F5. You can drop the ""www" and ".com" part of the address you seek by just typing the main part of the address and pressing Ctrl + Enter (this works with Internet Explorer 6.0 but I'm not sure about earlier versions.)

Customising Internet Explorer

Why not customise Internet Explorer to suit your individual requirements? Go to View > Toolbars > Customise. From the Customise Toolbar dialog box you can add, remove and move toolbar icons.
If you copy and paste a lot, add a copy button. Get rid of others you seldom or never use. (The functions aren't lost - you can still find them on the drop-down menus). This should make your internet sessions more useful and satisfying.

Block Unwanted Content in your Home or Office

Visit www.internet-protect.com and download the family-safe IP5 Browser. State-of-the-art filtering technology keeps out porn and other undesirable stuff.

Speed Up Your Online Research

If you're carrying out research on the Internet that doesn't envolve accessing graphics, why not increase your speed by disabling the graphics on your browser? If you're using Internet Explorer, go to Tools, Options, click on the Advanced tab, and scroll down to where it says Multimedia. Uncheck the box by pictures, and click Apply and OK. Any graphics will be replaced by empty boxes, but the pages will load much faster.

Sorting Favorites

If you use Microsoft Internet Explorer you probably have a lot of entries in your Favorites folder. Although you can create sub-folders, you may still have difficulty in finding any given favorite quickly.
Here's how to place them in alphabetical order. Click on Start > Favorites, and then right click on any entry. From the pop-up menu, select "Sort by Name".

Backing Up Your Address Book

This can be used to back up your Outlook Express Address Book or import it into another email program. Open Outlook Express and select File > Export > Address Book. When the dialog box appears select "Text File (comma separated values)". Click the Export button. Type in the path where you want the file stored, or browse for the file, and give it a name. Select Next, check on the items to be exported, and click on Finish.

Opening a New Browser Window

This is often useful if you don't want to permanently leave the page you're on at the present time. Press Ctrl + N. And don't forget the very useful F11 key for toggling between full screen and normal view.

Stop Spreading Viruses

Most viruses now depend on people forwarding them on unintentionally by sending them on to everyone in the victim's Address Book.
You can thwart this by making an entry in your Address Book that is not a proper email address. It should have an unacceptable character in it, such as ! Make it start with something like A or 1so it is the first address in your Address Book. For example, 1!aaa@nowhere.com . Then if your program attempts to send anything to that address it will display an error message.

Organising E-Mail

If you have a lot of e-mail messages from the same sender or on the same topic, and you use Outlook Express, you can combine them into one document. Open the folder containing the messages, highlight those messages by holding down the Ctrl key and highlighting each one in turn (or if they're all bunched together highlight the first one and hold down the shift key while clicking on the last message). Then select Message >Combine and Decode. You will have the option of changing the order of the messages. Then click OK and the new combined document will be created. Select Save As on the File menu to save it as a new document.

Keep Up To Date

Have you ever found some really useful information on the Net but you're not sure if the page is up to date? Here's how you can check when a page was last modified. You need to have your browser "Javascript enabled". With the page in your browser window, online, type the following into the address line: javascript:alert(document.lastModified) Press Enter and the date and time the page was last updated will be shown.

Safeguarding your Files on the Internet

The possibility of anyone breaking into your files while you are on the Internet is remote. But you can make sure this is actually impossible. Go to Control Panel and open the Network icon. Click on the File and Print Sharing button and make sure that the item "I want to be able to give others access to my files" is unchecked.

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Watch out for fresh Internet tips'n'tricks coming soon. How about adding your own Internet tips? Just e-mail them to me from here with your name (a nickname will do if you like) and the name and url of your website, and I'll place a link to it from MagneticWeb.
Happy surfing!
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