- General
- Search toolbars
- Missing pages
- Internet Explorer
- Homework
Internet Explorer
Let's consider some of the basic buttons and controls available to users of Internet Explorer. Note that in some cases an icon may be barely visible ("grayed out" in computer lingo). In that case, the button is not available to you for some reason. For example, the Back icon will be grayed out when you launch your browser or open a new window because there is no previous page to which IE can return.
Back-This
button takes you to the page you visited immediately
before the current one. You can regress sequentially,
page by page, to your starting point. Newer versions of
browsers have a drop-down menu (indicated by a triangle
to the right of the Back icon) to let you jump back to a
specific page without having to stop at each page you
visited between that one and your current page.
Forward-This
one normally is grayed out. It becomes active only if you
have used the back button. It reverses the trek backward
that you made. For example, if you have looked at three
pages -- A, B and C (in that order) -- you could use Back
to return from C to B. Forward would take you to C
again.
Stop-You
can halt the loading of a page with this button. It's
useful when you see enough of a page to realize that it
isn't what you wanted. Rather than waiting for the entire
page to load (which can take some time if it has lots of
graphics), use the Stop button and go on to something
else.
Refresh-Use
this button to force the browser to contact the server
again and load the latest version of the page. If a
site's contents seldom change, you might not need to use
this one. It's handy, though for sites (like news media
pages) that are frequently updated. If you don't use the
Refresh button, you may see old contents of the page that
have been stored on your computer's hard drive in IE's cache. Many Web pages now refresh themselves, so that you
don't have to use this button to have an up-to-date
version.
Home-Every
browser has a home page. If you have never changed yours,
then you probably see Microsoft's Internet Start page or
your Internet service provider's start page every time
you launch your browser. You can change the setting so
that any page you like is the home page. To do so, use
your mouse to go to View on the menu bar. Select Internet
Options. Click on the General tab. The top of the window
deals with the home page. If you want to make the current
page your home page, click Use Current. If you want to
make another page the home page, type the URL of that
page in the address box. If you ever want to make the
Microsoft page your home page again, click Use Default. You can also
choose to open with a blank page. That's the fastest way to open IE
because you don't have to wait for a Web site to load.
Print-This
is one of the handiest features available in a browser.
Use it to produce a hard copy of an entire Web page for future
reference. That can be important, since pages are not
permanent on the Web. A printed copy of a no-longer-available
Web page can sometimes prove to be valuable.
We won't get into the other buttons. Instead, let's look at some of the options available through the menu bar.
File
New-One
of the most valuable features in a browser is the ability
to open more than one window at a time. Some pages take a
long time to load, and you have to just sit and wait for
them. You can use that time to do something else on the
Web! Use the New command under File (or just hold down
the control key and hit the N key) to open a new window.
Then you can browse, search or do whatever you want in
that window while the first one is still loading. If both
of them are slow, open a third window. The number of
windows you can open simultaneously is limited only by
your computer's resources.
New windows are also useful when you want to look at results from search engines or directories. Use a different technique here. Put the cursor on the link you want to examine and click with the right mouse button. When a menu with several options pops up, select Open in New Window. That way you can look at the hits your search compiled without having to use the back button every time you want to return to the original list. Some search engines allow you to accomplish this result with a selection in their preferences.
Save
As-If a page has a lot of text and you want to peruse
it when you're not connected to the Internet, use this
option to create a copy of the page as a text file or a
hypertext markup language (HTML) file on your hard drive.
You'll need to name the file, designate where you want it
stored on your hard drive, and select the appropriate
option in the Save As Type box. Once you do that, you can
open the text file with any word processor or open the
HTML file with your browser.
Print-If you use the Print option under File rather
than just clicking the printer icon at the top of the
browser, more choices will be available to you. For
example, you can designate a specific page or pages to be
printed. You can also highlight a block of text with your
cursor and use the "Selection" option to print
only that part of the page. I also suggest that you look for
"Printer-friendly" links on Web pages. Many sites now provide
such links to enable a user to print the text of a page without most of
the advertising that appears there.
Edit
Find-This command activates a built-in search feature of IE. For short Web pages it has little use, but for long documents it can be really valuable. Use it just like the Find command in a word processor. It will locate a word anywhere on the current Web page. Note, however, that the word must be in the text of the page. Find won't locate a word in a graphic.
View-Some of the functions under this menu are available through buttons. Probably its most valuable feature is the Internet Options selection. When you select it, you'll see a window with tabs for various aspects of IE. By clicking on those options and keeping or changing the settings that you see, you can customize IE's settings the way you want them. This menu also lets you enlarge or reduce the text on a page.
Favorites
You can build your own library of Web-based reference sources using two choices from this menu.
Add to Favorites-Just
as you use a bookmark to facilitate finding a spot in a
book quickly, creating a favorite link allows you to
return to a particular Web page quickly. This command
will create the link and save it for you. If you don't
designate any particular place to store the link, it will
be added to the top level of the list of favorites.
That's okay in the beginning, but things can quickly get
out of hand if you create too many links at that level.
It's better to create folders within Favorites and sort
your favorites by topics. You can designate a particular
folder for a favorite when you create it (or even create
a new folder at the same time). For example,
you might make a folder for academics and within that folder create
separate folders for each of your classes.
Note: A
favorite is not a permanent copy of a Web page; it is
only a link to the page. If the Web page is taken off its
server, you will not be able to reach it again with a
favorite. A favorite is similar to a speed dial button on a telephone.
If the person's phone number changes, using speed dial won't help you
get in touch with him or her.
Organize Favorites-After you have created links to favorite Web sites, you can reorganize them as you need to. Just go to this option, and you'll be able to rename favorites and move them from folder to folder. It's a handy feature. As your research progresses, you'll probably need to revise your organizational structure from what you envisioned at the start.
Help
Don't overlook this useful feature of IE. If you aren't sure how to do something, check the help file. It's not foolproof, but it contains a lot of good information.