Computer Tipandtrick

Have you ever landed on a site that had lots of content but no search engine? Well, if they're registered with Alta Vista, there's hope (note: I tried this with a few other SEs but couldn't get it to work. Alta Vista may be the only one this little trick works with).

Here's how to do it. You type in "host:" then the name of the host. Next, you type in a plus (+) sign and the term you're searching for. Let's say you were looking for computer tips on my site, WorldStart.com. You would type in the line below into the search box at AltaVista:

host:worldstart.com + computer tips

Hit Search and AltaVista will bring up (what it thinks) are relevant results. (Note - if you try the above line, you'll get lots of results since the term "computer tips" comes up on almost every page at my site.)

As if that wasn't enough, you can also use this little trick if the site you're trying to search through already has a search engine but it isn't returning the page you're after.

Cool huh?

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Have you ever wanted to show a friend the web page you were at? Maybe you felt the need to share a cool recipe you just discovered or maybe it's full of swimsuit models. In any case, if you're using Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator you can. Here's how to send your homepage to a buddy:

Internet Explorer:

1. Head to your homepage.

2. Click the File menu, Send, Page by e-mail.

3. Outlook Express (or Outlook) will now open and the page you were just looking at will be made into an e-mail message. All you need to do is fill in the recipient's address and send it off. To test this, use your own address and send it to yourself.

Netscape 6:

1. Head to your homepage.

2. Click the File menu, Send Page.

3. Netscape Mail will now open and the page you were just looking at will be made into an e-mail message. All you need to do is fill in the recipient's address and send it off. To test this, use your own address and send it to yourself.

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Is your Internet Explorer homepage wrong? Don't know how it got switched, but now your normal hompage 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 URL can be long and complicated, so this is a good way to "back up" your homepage.

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Curious as to what the difference is? Not much. "Bookmarks" are Netscape's term for what are essentially internet shortcuts. "Favorites" are MS Internet Explorer's term for them.

They both work the same way. When you're on a page you want to get back to, you click the Favorites or Bookmarks menu (depending on the browser) and usually you'll find an option to add the page to your favorites / bookmarks. Click that, add the page, and it appears on your favorites or bookmarks menu.

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Tips & Tricks

Plug-Ins


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.

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Tips & Tricks

Porn, Spam, and Filters

Do you want off those obnoxious list for Porn sites? Well, it's tough. There's not really a good answer to that one. I don't think anyone has a sure fire way to keep them from sending that junk to you once they get your address. Here's the long and short of it.

These are some things you can do to minimize it.

1. Never, ever, reply or respond in any way - just delete the e-mail. When you ask to be removed, all it does is tell them they have a "real" e-mail address. After all, anyone who would send out junk like that probably doesn't really care if you're angry about being on the list. So, don't respond to junk mail. Just delete it.

Besides, most of them use a fake e-mail address, so you can't reply to it anyhow.

2. Be careful what you sign up for and tell your friends not to sign you up for stuff.

You don't want to accidentally sign up or get on a list that freely sells its subscribers to anyone who will buy (no, we don't - in case you're wondering) and they didn't inform you of this.

Unfortunately it works the same way online as it does in the real world of direct marketing. You purchase something and give your phone number away. The place you make your purchase from then sells your information and suddenly you start getting telemarketers calling constantly (especially at dinner).

So, maybe you signed up for or purchased something on the web and the company sold your e-mail address. Now your address is on a CD with millions of others that's being sold for $150.00 to whoever wants to buy it. (And no, we don't do that either)

My advice on this one is to make sure whoever you're giving your info to will respect your privacy and not sell your information to a third party. If you're one of the thousands of people who have purchased software from us in the past, you probably noticed that we have privacy policy that promises we won't give your info away. Make sure any site you give you info to has a similar policy.

3. Another way to get your e-mail address on these lists is to post stuff somewhere. You post a classified ad or stick a link on a free for all links page and your address is sitting out there for the taking. There are little programs that "harvest" e-mail address from all over the net, so any time you post something, you risk getting added to a list somewhere.

Chat rooms, especially on AOL, are good targets for these e-mail harvesters too.

Sometimes it's a good idea to maintain a free e-mail address for this kind of thing, so you can avoid getting lots of spam in your regular e-mail account. Check out Yahoo or Hotmail for these.

4. And finally - tell people to use BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) to forward you e-mail. Have you ever gotten something forwarded to you with hundreds of e-mail addresses in the header? If so, your e-mail address may be getting unintentionally passed all over the net. Tell people to BCC forwarded messages to you so your address isn't exposed to the world.

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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?

You bet.

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. Poof! (No it really doesn't make that sound.) 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.

Cool, huh?

Try it for yourself with this really neat picture: http://geocities.com/rop92027/iceberg.htm

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.

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