Internet Explorer | Castellini on Computers - Computer help for beginners

Posts Tagged: Internet Explorer

Troubleshooting Your High Speed Internet Connection

photo credit: geo462rge

This tip needs to come back to the front page again. I’ve helped many more people the last few weeks with this issue.

Please print it and hang it by your computer…and send it your friends as well.

I posted this tip many moons ago, but wanted to bring it back to the front page because we have so many new high speed Internet users. Click the Printer Friendly option at the bottom of this tip, print it out and post it next to your computer…you will be glad you did.

Routers take high speed Internet signals and then distribute the signal (route) to multiple computers. Sometimes, however, the signal gets lost and an Internet connection cannot be made. This can be due to multiple reasons, but most can be rectified the same way. Before you reach for the phone or grumble under your breath, follow this simple and highly effective procedure to get your system(s) up and running again.

Shut off Continue reading →

Share YOUR Favorite Keyboard Shortcuts

I’m always amazed at how surprised computer users become when they learn about a keyboard shortcut. A keyboard shortcut is a combination of keys that you press on your keyboard to perform a particular function. If you learn them and practice them, they can shave hours off of the tedious maneuvering of the mouse.

These are my favorite and most used computer keyboard shortcuts:

Alt + TAB	Switch between Open Windows
Windows key + E	Open Internet Explorer
Windows key + M	Minimize all windows and show the desktop
Ctrl + C	Copy
Ctrl + V or Shift + Insert	Paste
Arrow keys	To scroll pages and place my cursor
TAB	Move between form fields (boxes)
F2	Rename a file or folder
Ctrl + F	Usually on the web to search for a word on a page
Windows key + R	Open the Run Command

Here are a couple more tips that Continue reading →

Riding Shotgun with Rick — No Comments
31
Jul 09

Firefox reaches 1 billion downloads

1billionfirefox After the great Internet Explorer (IE) vs. Netscape browser wars of the 90s, it didn’t appear that Internet Explorer would ever be challenged again…thus Microsoft’s complacency with updating IE. Then just 4+ years ago, Mozilla Firefox burst onto the scene with a small, fast, and safe browser that caught fire quickly. As spyware and other malware all but crippled IE users, Firefox became stronger and stronger and with the release of Firefox 2.0 in 2006, Firefox was here to stay.

This week, Firefox officially hit more than 1 billion download since its firs release. A huge accomplishment demonstrated by its nearly 25% market share (IE owned nearly 92% of the browser market just five years ago). Site statistics for HelpMeRick.com show that more than 61% of my visitors use Firefox! I knew Continue reading →

Email of the week — No Comments
4
Jun 09

Email of the Week – 006

photo credit: glindsay65

QUESTION

Name: Kathy

From: Grand Junction

OS: Windows XP

———————-
When I go into different web sites I get this message:
ERROR
A runtime error
has occurred?
Line 30
ERROR: Object required
Yes No

This occurs quite frequently can you tell me why and what I can do about it?

ANSWER

This error is usually due to Continue reading →

Internet Tips / Riding Shotgun with Rick / Tech News — 8 Comments
13
Apr 09

Internet Explorer 8 will start showing up in updates

Windows Vista users need to be on the lookout for the new version of Internet Explorer, Internet Explorer 8. Hopefully most of you are using Firefox and this won’t matter, but if you are an Internet Explorer users, do not install this optional update for at least a couple of months. Already it is known to cause conflicts with other applications and is generally not stable enough for daily use yet.

Let other people continue the beta testing of IE8 and use Firefox instead…or Google Chrome.

Microsoft to start pushing IE 8 to existing IE users | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com.

Internet Tips / Riding Shotgun with Rick / Tech News — 12 Comments
23
Mar 09

Hold off on the Internet Explorer 8 upgrade

photo credit: Castaway in Wales

Are you really still using Internet Explorer after all these years of me promoting and talking up Firefox? If you are, Microsoft released IE 8 last week, and already people are running away from it because of compatibility and stability problems.

Like always, hold off on these types of upgrades for at least 3 months and let others be the guienea pigs for Microsoft. You will get along just fine with IE 7 and better with Firefox until Microsoft works out all the kinks in IE 8.

The article below indicates that Microsoft actually lost browser share over the weekend by almost 50%!

IE8 Users Downgrade To Explorer 7

Riding Shotgun with Rick — No Comments
19
Mar 09

7 Days with Windows 7 – Day 3

photo credit: ieteam

I went against my instincts today for your benefit and delved into Internet Explorer 8. IE 8 will be the default browser in Windows 7, although their are rumors that it will be possible to disable or even uninstall it. IE 8 is a step up from IE 7, albeit a very small step. It still loads pages slower than Google Chrome and Firefox. The features that allow you to customize IE 8 are sparse and implemented by very few vendors. And with IE over market share dropping weekly, IE becomes less and less relevant. Nevertheless, I put together a short video giving you a quick tour of IE 8.

Incidentally, IE 8 will be released for Vista starting tomorrow. It isn’t a mandatory upgrade, and overall, I still Continue reading →

Internet Tips / Riding Shotgun with Rick — No Comments
28
Jan 09

Remember the tabs!

Every day I make my appointed computer help rounds, someone marvels at my use of browser tabs. Tabbed browsing started almost 9 years ago with the Opera browser and continues today with the excellent implementation in Firefox. Internet Explorer finally got on board a couple of years ago and tabs work ok with it too.

If you are not using tabs in your Internet browsing, then you really aren’t browsing, your floundering around the Internets. Learn to use tabs, you can do it. Use my video tutorial (click here) to learn this helpful and time saving technique that will change the way you look and use the web.

Riding Shotgun with Rick — 17 Comments
11
Jan 09

Windows 7 – First Impressions

Windows 7 Desktop

I just finished installing the Windows 7 Beta version released by Microsoft on Friday. I installed it on my Toshiba Intel dual-core processor with 4 GB of RAM. It was running Windows Vista which took more than 4 minutes to fully boot (I consider the boot up process to be finished when the hard drive stops spinning and I don’t have to compete with a still booting computer to do what I want to do), and running any applications was like walking through molasses. I can say that my expectations were pretty low, but I am pleasantly surprised…so far.

It took exactly 21 minutes from when I inserted the install DVD until I reached a workable desktop. Very impressive! The setup was painless and required very little input. In fact, it was so easy, I think that the folks at Microsoft must have taken a page out of the Linux/Ubuntu installs. It was easily the fastest and easiest install of any version of Windows. I hope it doesn’t change much with the final version.
Bootup time is faster than Vista too. With my fresh install of Windows 7 and no security software, boot time was just under 2 minutes.
Overall, the new OS feels snappy and clean. I haven’t seen any User Account Control (UAC) pop-ups yet.
On my Toshiba laptop, like Linux, I didn’t have to install a single driver. Once the quick install finished, my wireless, Ethernet, sound, video, SD card, and web cam all worked perfectly.
Microsoft has revamped and simplified the wireless connectivity…again very Ubuntuish in my opinion.
This beta version of Windows 7 also includes the new Internet Explorer 8 which doesn’t feel much different than 8, but is supposed to be more compatible and flexible than 7. I will test it a little, but still prefer Firefox. I will probably install Google Chrome as well to see how it runs in Windows 7.
The revamped Start menu has a new feature that when you hover on a recently used program it will also present to you your most recently used documents for that program. Nice.
The taskbar has also been changed, but I need to work with it some more before deciding exactly how those features affect uability and productivity.
I plan on installing AVG or Avast antivirus and OpenOffice to test them and will report more about speed and usability.

I’m writing this article and took the two screenshots in Windows 7 using the Snipping Tool introduced with Vista. I did use picnik.com to edit the photos, however, since the updated Paint program, although it does have a new Crop and Resize feature, the resize feature doesn’t have much flexibility.

Stay tuned for more articles about Windows 7 leading up to its release later this year, or early next year. If there are questions YOU have about Windows 7, leave a comment below and I will test them out for you.

Windows 7 taskbar