If you've been using Netscape
and installed
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4!
If you've been using
Netscape and install Microsoft Internet Explorer 4,
those bookmarks will be automatically imported into your Favorites folder.
But if you continue to use Netscape for a while, you may accumulate new bookmarks
that you'd like to move to your Favorites folder. To get those bookmarks,
run Windows Explorer and navigate to c:\Program Files\Netscape\Users\username where
"username"
is your log-in name. Here, you should find a file called Bookmark.htm. If IE 4 is your
default browser,
you can double-click this file to open it in IE 4. If IE 4 isn't your default browser,
click the file's icon to select it and then, while holding down the Shift key, right-click
the icon.
Choose Open With and then locate and double-click Iexplore.exe. With the file open in
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4,
right-click a URL and then choose Add to Favorites. After you've placed all the
bookmarks you care to into your IE 4 Favorites folder, you can close the browser.
Put e-mail addresses into the Favorites folder.
Yes, you can put
e-mail addresses into the Favorites folder. But, you have to do it manually.
Run Windows Explorer and navigate to \Windows\Favorites. Right-click in the right pane and
choose New
Shortcut. This will open the Create Shortcut dialog box. Type in the e-mail address you
want in the Favorites folder.
This must be in the form mailto:recipient@whoknows.com After you type in the address as
shown here,
click Next to continue. Next, enter the recipient's name and click Finish.
All you have to do now is choose Favorites and select the name to open the Outlook Express
New Message dialog box.
If you'd like to keep all your mail in one place, you can navigate to \Windows\Favorites
and right-click in the right pane.
This time, choose New, Folder and name the new folder Mail. You can now move your new
mailto link into the Mail folder.
When you create a new link, just open \Windows\Favorites\Mail and create your new shortcut
there.
To change the button icon size.
To change the
button icon size, Choose View, Internet Options and then click the Advanced tab.
Scroll down to the bottom of the list and you'll find a check box labeled Small Icons.
Select this check box and click OK. Now your icons will appear in the smaller size.
Deleted messages continue to take up space.
Although it may
appear that Outlook Express folders hold files in the same way as other folders,
this isn't the case. The Outlook Express messages are actually sitting in a group of
files. For example,
there's a file called Inbox.mbx that contains all the messages in the Inbox folder.
Say that you've been running Outlook Express for quite a while now and you've been
deleting messages all along.
Although they're no longer visible, deleted messages continue to take up space in the
Inbox and other files.
The files grow this way until they are compacted by Outlook Express.
You don't have to wait for Outlook Express to compact the files for you.
If you want to keep those Outlook Express folder files small, choose File, Folder,
Compact All Folders. Messages you no longer need will disappear,
and those Folder files will become much smaller.
Clear off your desktop,create a desktop toolbar.
One way to clear off
your desktop is to create a desktop toolbar. You can anchor the new toolbar at the top,
right, or left side of the screen. Once you've got the toolbar at work, you can hide all
your desktop icons.
To create the new toolbar, right-click the default toolbar and choose Toolbars, New
Toolbar.
When the New Toolbar dialog box opens, click Desktop to select it and then click OK.
Now grab your new toolbar with the mouse and drag it to its new location.
Right-click the new toolbar in a blank spot and, from the pop-up menu, select Always on
Top and Auto Hide.
Now the toolbar will appear only when you move the mouse to the area of the screen where
you docked the bar.
To hide the existing icons on the desktop, click My Computer and choose View, Folder
Options.
When the Folder Options dialog box opens, click the View tab. Look for the check box
labeled
Hide Icons When Desktop Is Viewed as a Web Page and select it.
Click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes. Now all your desktop objects will
appear in the new
Desktop toolbar--and nowhere else. To access anything on the desktop, move the mouse over
the hidden toolbar.
The toolbar will open, and you can click the icon of your choice.
You can add new icons to the desktop just as you did before you made this change,
except the icon will automatically appear in the toolbar rather than on the desktop.
Folders you often use while working with Microsoft
Internet Explorer 4.
If there's a particular folder you need to use often while
working with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4,
you can drag a shortcut of the folder to IE 4's Links folder. To do this, run Windows
Explorer and locate
C:\Windows\Favorites\Links. Locate the folder you want to include in the Links folder and
use
the right-mouse button to drag its icon to the Links folder.
When you release the mouse button, select Create Shortcut(s) Here.
Now Run IE 4, choose Favorites, Links, and you'll see your new folder.
Edit
a Web page from your history folder
You know you can edit
a Web page by clicking the Edit button in the Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 toolbar.
You don't necessarily have to open a page to edit it--all you have to do is open your
History folder and then right-click the page you want to edit. When the menu opens,
choose Edit and the page will open in FrontPage Express (assuming that's your default
editor)."
You can also use the same menu to print, subscribe, cut, copy, and delete--all without
ever visiting the page.
Forward mail to someone who might be interested.
When you want to
forward mail to someone who might be interested in the topic, you have two choices:
You can click Forward and then add a short message, or you can choose Compose, Forward as
Attachment.
In the first case, the message is sent in the body of a new message along with any
explanatory note.
In the second case, the message gets sent as an attachment to your explanatory note.
When you select this option, the message will retain its original formatting--
just as if you were attaching a word processor document or a picture.
With hover activated, the URL color will change to the
hover color.
Choose View, Internet
Options. When the Internet Options dialog box opens,
select the General tab and click Colors. When the Colors dialog box opens,
select the check box labeled Use Hover Color. The default color is red,
but you can choose another color by simply clicking Hover.
This opens a color menu from which you can select a color. When you're finished with your
selections,
click OK. This takes you back to the Internet Options dialog box where you should click
OK again to close the dialog box and record your changes. With hover activated,
when you move the mouse pointer over a URL, the URL color will change to the hover color.
You'll have no navigation problems if you click a URL when the color changes.
The color change is sure proof that you're over the URL.
Do you want to know what the actual URLs are.
When you look in the
Favorites folder, the URLs all have descriptive names.
If you want to know what the actual URLs are, you can right-click the icon and choose
properties.
When the Properties dialog box opens, click the Internet Shortcut tab.
The full URL will be displayed in the Target URL text box.
But, you don't even have to go through all that unless you want to copy the URL name.
All you have to do is move the mouse pointer over the URL in your Favorites menu and wait
a second or so.
The tool tips box will appear and display the full address.
Internet Explorer 4 toolbar toggles buttons are
Some of the Microsoft
Internet Explorer 4 toolbar buttons are toggles. The toggle buttons are Search,
Favorites, History, and Channels. When you click History (for example),
the History frame opens at the left side of your screen. To close History, just click the
toolbar button again.
The Fullscreen button is also a toggle in a way. When you click Fullscreen,
a similar button appears in the Fullscreen view. You can click this button to return to
normal screen view.
To
place shortcuts on the desktop
To place shortcuts on
the desktop, right-click the page and choose Create Shortcut.
This will place the shortcut directly onto your desktop. Gerry suggests that you copy a
destination
URL and then paste it to the desktop. To do this, right-click the link and then choose
Copy Shortcut.
Now, right-click the desktop and choose Paste Shortcut.
This is a great way to remind yourself later to check out that link.
Web
navigation has slowed down
It's often difficult
to tell when Web navigation has slowed down due to a local problem
because the speed of the Internet varies so much anyway. However,
since a number of people have reported the same problem, we'll offer one suggestion that
you can try:
Delete the files in your Temp folder and see what happens. To do this, choose View,
Internet Options.
When the Internet Options dialog box opens, click the General tab and then click Delete
Files.
Close Microsoft Internet Explorer and then restart it to see if this helps.
Dress up your new toolbars.
You may find that
large icons make the new toolbar too big. You can change the icon size if you right-click
the new toolbar and choose View, Small. Also, right-click and select the
Show Text command to remove the text and display the icons alone. This is a toggle
command,
so you can deselect it if you change your mind about the text. Alternatively,
you can resize the toolbar so that it will show all the text or only some text (unlike the
system toolbar).
Just grab the edge of the toolbar with the mouse and drag toward the center of the screen.
Delete My Documents folder that appears in the Favorites
menu.
My Documents folder
that appears in the Favorites menu! If want to know how to get rid of it.
All you have to do is choose Favorites, Organize Favorites and click My Documents to
select it.
Then press Delete. Don't worry that you might delete the My Documents folder from your
system;
the one you see in Favorites is a shortcut.
Previewing images on a floppy disk with a little help
from
Microsoft IE4 and the ActiveDesktop.
Most of us have
picture files with obscure names. For example,
if you copy a file named 2f23rt.jpg to a floppy disk, will you remember what picture that
name represents?
Probably not. But you can easily preview the images on a floppy disk with a little help
from
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 and the Active Desktop. Copy a few picture files to a floppy
disk.
Now double-click the Floppy Disk icon to open the disk. Choose View, As Web Page.
Click one of the picture file names, and you'll see a preview in the left pane of the
Floppy Disk window.
Of course, this will only work for those who have Internet Explorer 4 and Active Desktop
installed.
But it won't cause any problems for people who don't use IE 4.
Print any message by simply activating that message
and then pressing Ctrl-P.
A way to print a
message that you just generated is to call it up from the
Sent Message folder and print from there. You can print any message by simply activating
that
message and then pressing Ctrl-P. Let's say you're writing a message and
you'd like to print it before you click Send. Press Ctrl-P, and the message will print.
To print a Web page
Select how much of a
Web page to print when you use Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.
To print a Web page, choose File, Print. When the Print dialog box opens, you can select
the radio button labeled All to print the entire page (which may consist of a number of
printer pages).
If you prefer, you can select the radio button labeled Pages from and enter 1 to 1 to
print only one page
(or 1 to 2, 1 to 3, etc.). Click OK to continue with printing Note that if the page has
frames,
you can also choose to print the entire page as laid out on the screen, only the selected
frame,
or all frames individually. Just select the appropriate radio button and click OK to
print.
You can also select a check box labeled "Print all linked documents." This is a
handy feature,
but be sure you have some idea how many pages are linked--you could find yourself in the
middle of a huge print job.
To put a
site into Quick Launch
To put a site into
Quick Launch, grab the URL with your right-mouse button and drag it down to the
Quick Launch bar. When you release the mouse button, choose Create Shortcut(s) Here.
If you decide to delete some of the Quick Launch items,
just right-click the one you want to get rid of and choose Delete from the menu.
Deactivate the Active Desktop without removing it
You can deactivate
the Active Desktop without removing it.
To turn off Active Desktop, right-click the desktop and choose Active Desktop,
View as Web Page. View as Web Page is a toggle--when the check mark is present, it is on,
and when the check mark isn't present, Active Desktop is off.
To see nothing but Web pages on your screen!
Microsoft Internet
Explorer 4 can go beyond that full-screen toggle.
If you'd like to see nothing but Web pages on your screen,
click the Fullscreen toggle button on the toolbar and then right-click the toolbar and
choose Auto Hide.
Note: Auto Hide is only available after you click the Fullscreen toggle.
Save an entire Web page.
If you want to
download a Web page with loads of text and two pictures. Choose File,
Save As to save the Web page. Now right-click one of the pictures and choose Save Picture
As.
Use the existing name for the picture and store it in the same folder as the Web page.
Repeat the process to save the second picture. After you've saved all the pictures along
with the Web page,
open the Web page file in Notepad and modify the HMTL code that describes where the images
are located.
If the current address of one of the pictures is src="images/new.gif" change it
to src="new.gif"
since the image now resides in the same folder as the Web page. Repeat this procedure for
each image
(and sound file). Note that the Web page may also have a background that you need to save
separately.
Follow the same procedure--right-click the background and choose Save Background As.
Then make the necessary modifications to the HTML file to get the background to appear in
your copied Web page.
Sending e-mailing links.
Microsoft Outlook
Express makes sending links easy for you. With the Web page open in Internet Explorer,
click the Mail icon on the toolbar. When the menu pops up, choose Send a Link.
When the Outlook Express Mail window opens, add the recipient's address and enter an
explanatory message.
Click Send, and your friend will soon get that link.
Start Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 so the window is
always maximized.
The Internet Explorer
icon in the Quick Launch menu is a shortcut. Right-click this icon and choose Properties.
When the Properties dialog box opens, click the Shortcut tab. Now, click the arrow at the
right side of the Run
list box and select Maximized. Click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes.
Use Windows Explorer (in Windows 95 and 98)
as your primary center of operations.
In Windows Explorer,
choose Favorites and select one of your favorite sites.
Your system will dial your ISP and navigate to the selected site.
The Web page will appear in the right pane of Windows Explorer.
You can now work with the right pane to view either Web pages or folder contents--
all without ever leaving Windows Explorer.
| Tips | PC News | Hardware | Software | Troubleshooting | Maggie's Place |
Last Updated: 11/15/98 11:30:02 PM -0500
