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Internet Tips

Use the Internet to stop solicitor calls

Two years ago, Colorado became one of the first states to institute a "no-call" list that consumers could sign up for to prevent solicitation phone calls. This past week, the FTC started a national "no-call" list. These lists must be checked by phone solicitation companies every three months to updated their databases. If a solicitor calls you and you are registered on the "no-call" list, you can file a complaint and the solicitor will be fined fairly substantially ( up to $11,000 per incident for the national list).

As opposed to spam (unsolicited email), phone solicitors are regulated and must comply to certain rules. Therefore, these lists do work. Colorado residents who signed up two years ago report that their phone solicitation calls are almost nil. In less than twenty-four hours, the national list had almost one million people sign up. The FTC expects nearly sixty million numbers to be registered by next summer. 

Tired of looking at clouds?

Here is a quick way to add new wallpaper to your desktop as you browse around the Internet (this tip works with Netscape, Internet Explorer, and AOL):

  1. RIGHT Click on any image on any web page
  2. Click on “Save Image as Wallpaper” or “Set as Wallpaper”

That’s it!  A simple tip with a fun result!

Search the Internet Quicker

Many Internet surfers have discovered and benefited from a great search engine called Google. Doing basic searches with this engine can reduce the time it takes to find relevant information. 

Most good web sites will have a search engine that just searches its own site (see ours on the bottom of most of our pages). As helpful as these can be, they sometimes fall short in finding the precise information you are looking for. Using a feature of Google called ‘site searching’, you can have Google’s search engine do the work that the site’s engine cannot. 

Quickly Navigating to a website

When you read about a web site or hear one advertised on the radio or TV, do you know hot to get to it quickly?  If no, here’s how:

This tip will work with ANY online service or browser or operating system.  

As you are reading this tip, look toward the top of your monitor.  Do you see a long white box with an http:…. address in it?  This is called the browser address or location bar.  You will interact with it to successfully complete this tip.

  1. Click ONE time anywhere in the long white address bar toward the top of the screen (the current address will become highlighted)
  2. Type the address of the web page you are looking for (ex:  www.helpmerick.com   note that you do NOT have to type the http:// part of the address)
  3. Push ENTER or RETURN on your keyboard and you will be transported the address you typed.

That’s it, no more complicated than these three steps.  Just make sure that your spelling is correct and that you use periods instead of commas. 

Navigating the Web

Just starting out on the Web? This tip is for you!

This tip will work with ANY online service or browser or operating system.  

When you are looking at your Internet screen,  do you see a long white box with an http:…. address in it?  This is called the browser address or location bar.  

  1. Click ONE time anywhere in the long white address bar toward the top of the screen (the current address will become highlighted)
  2. Type the address of the web page you are looking for (ex:  www.yourpcpartner.com   note that you do NOT have to type the http:// part of the address)
  3. Push ENTER or RETURN on your keyboard and you will be transported the address you typed.

That’s it! No more complicated than these three steps.  Just make sure that your spelling is correct, use periods instead of commas, and don’t use spaces. 

Our Top Internet Information Sites 2005

We started publishing this list about three years ago. I fully admit that I am an information junkie and enjoy finding the answers to questions as soon as they come up. I tend to use a core group of sites to find my information. In this list you will see some perennial favorites and some new ones that I started using over the past year.

In no particular order, my favorite information gathering web sites are:

  • Google – Hands down the best place to start when you are searching the Internet

Making the most of a dialup connection

This tip has the dual function of teaching you how to not only get around the Internet faster, but also understand how Windows can allow you to do more than one task at a time.

First, when you use a search engine, it returns many different answers for you to sift through.  The common way to sift through these is to click on one of the answers, examine it and then hit the back button on the browser to return to the list.

A quicker way to find what you are looking for is to:

  1. Right Click on a link from the answer list
  2. Click on the open link in a new window option

This starts a brand new window for you to load the page.  So, instead of waiting for it download, immediately push Alt+tab on your keyboard OR click on the alternate browser button on your taskbar to return to the list of answers.

Repeat this process as much as five times to open up web pages simultaneously. 

Lose the ads in the Netscape Messenger (email) Preview Pane

Here is how to get rid of those email ads from Netscape:

1. Click on Start –> Find –> Files or folders 

2. Type: *prefs.js in the "find" box 

3. Make sure the Look in box says My Computer 

4. Click Find now 

5. The search should yield at least two files (depends on how many profiles you have set up in Netscape) 

6. RIGHT click on each of the files and click Edit 

7. Type or copy and paste the following line into the file: user_pref("mailnews.start_page.enabled", false); 

Learn To Identify Search Engine Ads

A search engine is a website or part of a website that allows you to search either the entire Internet, or a given website for specific information.
Google, Yahoo, Excite and Dogpile are just a few of the common search engines that search the entire Internet for information on any word or topic you type into their search box.

As you may well imagine, it is not an easy thing to create software that searches the entire Internet with accuracy. Rest assured, it is even tougher to find people to design such software for free.

Google, Yahoo, AskJeeves, Excite, and every other search engine requires money to stay afloat.

Learn about Your Favorite Hobby or Share your Experiences

With over a half billion people online worldwide and growing by more than one hundred million annually, the Internet is a great place to congregate and discuss hobbies, politics, sports and more. Are you interested in Model A Ford restoration, raising cockatoos, RV traveling, cross breeding tulips, or programming Access? These and thousands of other topics are freely available for discussion on the Internet.

In the beginning, there were newsgroups. Now, email discussion groups are more popular and easier to participate and benefit from. Email discussion groups bring together people of like interests for discussion, information sharing and Internet camaraderie.