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):
That’s it! A simple tip with a fun result!
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.
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.
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.
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
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:
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.
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.
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.
The Internet’s prowess for finding almost any type of information continues to grow.
Today’s tip focuses on how to get back to where we have been on the Internet. There are many times that I need to get back to a web page that I was viewing earlier in my Internet session and pushing the Back button a gazillion times seems silly and slow.
Internet Explorer (version 4.0 and greater) users note that there is a little upside down triangle next to the Back button. Click on it and viola there is a list of all the sites you have visited so far. Just scroll through the list and click on any item to be instantly transported there!
Netscape users (version 4 and greater), the method is similar. Simply click and HOLD your mouse button down on the Back button and you will see a list of all the sites you have visited in the current session and can click on any one of them to leap frog to it.
Note also that the same technique can be used for the forward button as well. Sorry AOL users, this is yet another feature not currently supported by AOL.
Sometimes the simple tips provide the most usefulness. Try this tip to gain a little speed when navigating to a new or favorite web site. As the title suggests, this tip only works with Internet Explorer. Do not add or subtract any steps from this tip:
Click on one time in the address bar at the top of the browser
Type the name of the web site in the bar (eg. for www.helpmerick.com just type helpmerick, for www.foodtv.com just type foodtv, etc)
Press Ctrl+Enter on your keyboard and boom the browser automatically adds the http://www to the beginning and the .com to then end of the address and instantly transports you to the web site.
If you have read our newsletter, or listened to the show at any time over the past two plus years, you have heard us mention the "Castellini on Computers Blogger". Hopefully many of you’ve already benefited from our Blogger as it holds many treasures.
Simply put, a Blogger is a diary of sorts that anyone can start on the Internet. Three years ago, if you wanted to start a web page, you had to learn HTML, FTP and find a host. That was enough to scare most people away from even attempting the task. Then came Blogger. As their tagline says, "push-button publishing for the people", truly means push-button publishing. Visit the Blogger web site for more details.