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Create Your OWN Personalized Newspaper Online – Video Tip

In this month’s group, we talked about and demonstrated how to set up a web page that can be personalized. I like to use a customized web page (portal) as my home page (first page that shows up when I start my browser). We looked at the Yahoo portal (My Yahoo) and the newer Google customized home page.

Both services require that you register and setup a user name and password. Once you register, you can customize your page to include weather information, stock portfolios, sports news and scores, news from industries or topics that you choose, comics, and even content from other web pages. Both services are free and give you the flexibility to add, subtract and edit any type of data that you choose.

  • After you sign in, first look for the

You can change your Internet Home Page – Video Tip

When you buy a new computer, the Internet browser comes pre-configured with a home page (first web site you see when you start your web browser). For PC’s, it is usually MSN. For Mac’s it is Apple.com. If you download Firefox (which everyone should be using), its default home page is a Firefox branded Google page. Sometimes your Internet provider’s web site takes over as your home page if you run one of their setup disks.

Through all of this, you had no say so as to what your home page is. Fortunately, it is a simple procedure to change the home page to anything you want. Here’s how to change it no matter what web browser you use (except Internet Explorer 7):

  1. Pull up the web site you want to see first when you start Internet sessions
  2. Click and drag the little icon next to the address of that site to the Home icon (looks like little house)
  3. Click Yes on the confirmation dialog box asking if you really want to change your home page

That’s it. Now if you are one of the many unfortunate souls who is using Windows Vista, watch how “elegant, quick and streamlined” Microsoft has made this process with Internet Explorer 7:

  1. Pull up the web site you want to see first
  2. Click the drop down arrow next to the Home icon…no not the one at the end of the toolbar, the one righ next to the Home icon
  3. Click Add or Change Home Page
  4. Read and decide whether you want to “use this page as your only home page” or “Add this web page to your home page tabs” (a question which will befuddle many computer users)
  5. Click the option of the answer you chose
  6. Click Yes 

See, that’s DOUBLE the intuitive steps that we have used for more than 10 years and all other browsers use! That’s Microsoft progress! That’s Vista! But Vista sure is purdy.

To see these steps in action, watch the video below:

7 ways to become a more efficient web user – Video Tip

This is a reintroduction and retitling of a previous video/tip because of a copyright infringement complaint from Franklin Covey. Hopefully, the new title and verbiage will satisfy their legal staff.

All week long I help computer users of all ages and experience levels. Too often, I see that many computer users (beginners and experienced alike) do not utilize or know about some basic web browsing skills that will speed their work and give them less problems when using the Internet.

In this week’s tip, I will highlight the inefficient habits computer users use and replace them with tips that will make YOU a quicker and more profecient web user.

1.  Using an old browser

No matter how old your computer is or what operating system you are using, DO NOT USE INTERNET EXPLORER 6 (IE 6). IE 6 is late 20th century technology and is not compatible with much of the web today and it also poses the greatest security risks.

Instead, use

1-click access to your favorite websites – Video Tip

Please DO NOT use the address bar as a repository to return to sites you use all the time…eventually they will get lost. The address bar history maintains a small amount of your recently visited site and can easily be wiped out via an update or disk cleaning and maintenance tools.

Instead, use the Favorites (Internet Explorer) or Bookmarks (Firefox and every other browser). Favorites/Bookmarks are designed to save and give you quick access to your most used sites and sites you just want to keep track of for later use. Also, you can back them up easily.

If you are like me, you visit a handful of web sites every single day and sometimes multiple times per day. Having bookmarks to these sites works fine, but that requires a minimum of three clicks to reach your favorite sites.

In this video, I describe how to get 1-click access to your favorites using the extremely underutilized Links toolbar (Internet Explorer) and the Bookmarks toolbar (Mozilla Firefox).

This tip requires no downloading and no installation of extra software. Everything is built-in to the browser and available to you right now. So watch the video and learn how to take charge of these extremely useful tools you never knew how to use!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwE__e7oYq4&hl=en]

Searching within a Web page – Video Tip

This tip falls in the category of “wow, that’s easy to do, I wish I would have known about it long ago!”

When you are on a particularly long web page and need to find a term or phrase, click on Edit from your menus, then Find (or Find in page on some browsers). The keyboard shortcut is Ctrl + F. You will be presented with a small window that allows you to enter a word or phrase and then the computer will look for that word on the page and bring you right to it.

As with many other features, Mozilla Firefox’s implementation of this feature is superior to all other browsers, as it gives you helpful extras like find the next or previous occurrence of the word or phrase you are looking for and even has an option to highlight all the occurrences on the page. (See the accompanying picture). 

Firefoxs Find in Page toolbar 

This tip is especially helpful for genealogy researchers. Sometimes your eyes can become crossed looking for a surname in a sea of text. Use the find function instead and cut your work and eye strain in half!

If you need to look for the same term again on the same page, you will notice that the function gives you the option to find again without retyping.

This type of search works best with single words, but you can experiment with phrases as well.

You can also use the Find function in Word Processing documents, email, spreadsheets, and PDF files as well.

Watch the short video below to see this tip in action in both Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Troubleshooting Your High Speed Internet Connection

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.

  1. Shut off all computers.

  2. Unplug the power from the high speed modem.

  3. Unplug the power from

Open Multiple Home Pages with Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, OR Internet Explorer – Video Tip

Now that Internet Explorer has caught up (sort of) with modern browsers, I wanted to point out yet another function of tabbed browsing (click here for the popular and informative tabbed browsing tip ). If you like to check multiple sites every day or maybe use your browsing sessions for research, let your browser do some of the work for you by opening multiple pages at the same time.

Mozilla Firefox

  1. Open the first page you would like to see every time you start Firefox
  2. Click File –> New –> Tab (or Ctrl + T) to open a new tab
  3. Open the next page you want to see every time you start Firefox
  4. Repeat steps 1-3 for as many pages as you want to open automatically
  5. Click Tools –> Options from the menus
  6. Click the "Main" button at the top of the options screen
  7. Click "Use Current Pages" button in the Startup section
  8. Click the OK button at the bottom of the screen

Internet Explorer 7 (IE7)

  1. Open the first page you would like to see every time you start IE7
  2. Click File –> New –> Tab (or Ctrl + T) to open a new tab, or click the new tab button next to the current tab
  3. Open the next page you want to see every time you start IE7
  4. Repeat steps 1-3 for as many pages as

Reset Internet Explorer 7 or 8 or 9

IE 7 Reset buttonMicrosoft released Internet Explorer 7 in October and although it contains many improved features, it has also brought on a slew of new problems for computer users just moving to it.

5 Steps to Using Online Financial Sites Safely

Every year computer users using the Internet to check account balances, transactions, and even paying bills grows by nearly 30%. According to one Pew study, more than 50 million Americans use online banking services. 50 million sounds like a large number, but that still reflects less than 50% of online American adults. Bank web sites continue to evolve by becoming easier to use, more secure, and more helpful than ever before. In fact, many banks rather that their customers check their web site for answers rather than call or visit a branch. However, many people shy away from online banking because of security fears.

I?m going to outline, for you, five simple steps that you can take to keep yourself and your finances safe on the Internet.