Internet Explorer

Stuff I have found or been sent that might help solve problems, improve performance, enhance security etc...

Add Navigator Bookmarks to IE Favorites
By adding Navigator's Bookmarks to IE's Favorites list, you'll gain instant access to all your Bookmarks from within Internet Explorer. It's as simple as designating bookmark.htm as one of your Favorites. In IE 3.x and 4.x, select File, Open, choose Browse, set "Files of type" to All Files, and use the "Look in" drop-down box to navigate to bookmark.htm. When you find it, double-click the file to load it into the Open dialog box. Click OK again, and IE will display Navigator's Bookmarks as active links. On the menu, click Favorites, Add to Favorites, name the shortcut Navigator Bookmarks, and then click OK. Now you can click Navigator Bookmarks just as you would any IE Favorite.

Back Up Favorites You've spent valuable time collecting URLs. Now, before you try any of our fancy tricks, protect yourself by making backups of your Bookmarks or Favorites. Internet Explorer saves its Favorites in the \Windows\Favorites folder (win9x) and in \Winnt\Profiles\username\Favorites (NT4), so open the The correct folder and hold down Ctrl while you drag the Favorites folder to another folder (or right-click it, select Copy, and then paste it into another folder).

A More Stable Relationship
Any browser crash can make Windows unstable. The severity ranges from an app going belly-up to Microsoft's dreaded Blue Screen of Death.
IE 4 offers another option. Do it before you hit your next crash, and you'll save yourself serious headaches. Click View, Internet Options, click the Advanced tab and check "Browse in a new process." This makes IE handle Web browsing as a task separate from other system functions, so the next time IE 4 hits an iceberg, it shouldn't take Windows down with it.

Make Internet Explorer the Default
Whenever you install a Web browser, it begs you to let it become your default browser, and it repeats this plea until you make a decision. What if, after using one browser for a while, you want to switch? You can change your mind, but it's much easier to do so in Internet Explorer than in any version of Navigator. In IE 3.x and 4.x, select View, Internet Options, click the Program tab, check the box labeled "Internet Explorer should check to see whether it is the default browser," and then click OK.

Downsize the Toolbar
When IE 4.x is crammed with icons and you're tired of resizing windows just to see them all, you can shrink the buttons. Choose View, Internet Options, and click the Advanced tab. Scroll down to Toolbar and select the Small Icons button. If you don't use the Font button very often (it's off by default) you may save some space by deselecting the Show Font Button check box. Then click OK. You can still modify the font size by choosing View, Fonts and making your selection.

ANOTHER QUICK KEY
You know you can press the Backspace key to go back a page in Microsoft Internet Explorer 4. You can also go forward a page by pressing Shift-Backspace.
In almost all Windows applications, pressing Shift reverses the navigation. For example, if you use the Tab key to jump from field to field, you can move backward, retracing your steps, by holding down the Shift key while you press Tab.
You can also move forward in IE 4 by pressing Alt-right arrow key. To navigate forward with even greater precision, click the arrow to the right of the Forward button, which will open a drop-down list of choices.

QUICK ADDITIONS TO QUICK LAUNCH
One of the more useful features of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 is that it adds icons representing Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Show Desktop, and View Channels to the taskbar. If you like, you can add other program icons to the Quick Launch area of the taskbar. You can also delete some of the existing ones.
Open Windows Explorer and go to Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch. In the Windows Explorer right pane, you’ll see the current Quick Launch items. Now you can use the mouse to drag another program’s icon into the folder. For example, Windows Explorer would make a nice addition to Quick Launch. Go to \Windows and locate Explorer.exe. You can hold down the Ctrl key while you drag the Explorer icon to the Quick Launch folder.
The icon will appear in Quick Launch immediately; you don’t need to restart.

CUT AND PASTE AN ADDRESS
Almost all Windows programs allow you to cut (or copy) and paste data between programs. This applies to Microsoft Internet Explorer as well. Therefore, if you have an Internet address in a Windows document (Word, Excel, Lotus 1-2-3, Word Pro, etc.) that you’d like to visit, you can get that address into Microsoft Internet Explorer without doing a bunch of typing. All you have to do is select the address in your Windows program and copy it (press Ctrl-C in most programs). Then go to Microsoft Internet Explorer and click in the Address Box. Now press Ctrl-V to paste the address.
Note: This applies to addresses that are not hyperlinked. If the address appears as a link in the application, you can simply click it to go directly to the address.

DOCKING THE DESKTOP
Drag the My Computer icon to the right (or top, or left) side of the screen. The icon will dock and form a new icon bar displaying the contents of My Computer. To make it display the desktop, right-click the icon bar and select Toolbars, Desktop. Now your desktop icons will appear in the new icon bar. If you’d like to eliminate the My Computer contents, right-click the icon bar and choose Toolbars, My Computer to deselect it. You can now open My Computer and choose View, Folder Options then click the View tab and select "Hide icons when desktop is viewed as Web page." Click Apply and then OK.
Now the only thing on your desktop is the new My Computer icon bar displaying the contents of your desktop.

CLICKING THE INACTIVE E-THING
You can open Explorer Properties and make changes without running Microsoft Internet Explorer 4. All you have to do is right-click the E-icon on the desktop. When the menu opens, choose Properties. You can click any of the tabs and make changes. If you like, click the General tab and choose a new home page. When you finish with your changes, click Apply, then OK.
The next time you run IE4, it will use your new settings.

WORK WHILE YOU WORK If you’re in a hurry and hate to sit around drinking coffee while you download a long file, just press Ctrl-N to open a new browser window. Now you can surf to your heart’s content while the download proceeds. Oh sure, you’ll slow the download somewhat, but it beats sitting around drinking coffee, doesn’t it? Alternatively, you can continue to navigate the Web while a download is in progress by simply clicking on a favorite or typing a URL into the Address box. It’s just that it might be easier to keep track of what’s happening if you open a new window.

SEARCH FOR A NEW HOME
Many of the search sites now have added news and links to other sites. With all the information available on search pages these days, it’s not unreasonable to use one as your home page (the first page you see when you start up IE 4). This is a real advantage if your Internet usage consists primarily of extensive searches. To make a search page your home page, navigate to the page and then choose View, Internet Options and click on General. Now click on Use Current. Click on Apply and then click on OK to close the dialog box and save your changes.

MOUSELESS NAVIGATION
You can get anywhere on a Web page without using the mouse. All you have to do is use the Tab key. Each time you press Tab, you’ll move to the next URL. If the page you’re viewing has more than one frame, pressing Tab will move through all the URLs in the current frame and then switch you to the next frame. To navigate to a selected URL, just press Enter. Of course, you can use the Home, End, Page Up, Page Down, and Arrow keys to navigate through a page that’s longer than one screen.

WORKING WITH THE ADDRESS BOOK
Once you’ve installed Outlook Express, you’ll want to add some names to the Address Book. To get to the Address Book, run Microsoft Outlook Express and go to File, Address Book. To record a name and an address, click on New Contact. On the Personal tab, add the person’s name and e-mail address, and click on Add. If you have several e-mail addresses for one person, click on Add for each one. Continue until you’ve entered them all. Select the one address you want to use as the default for that person and click on Set as Default. If you’d like to add more information about the person, such as his or her home address, click on the Home tab and add the info there. As you can see, there are a number of tabs available. Click on any of them to add information. For example, to add your new entry’s business address and phone number, click on Business and make your additions there. After you finish adding all the information, click on OK.

DIRECT MAIL Version 4
You can send e-mail directly from your Start menu.
To set it up, right-click on Start and choose Explore. Create a new folder and name it Send e-mail to. Open the new folder and right-click on the right pane of Windows Explorer.
Choose New, Shortcut. The Create Shortcut dialog box will open.
Type in mailto:email-address (for "email-address," substitute the e-mail address of your intended recipient) and click on Next. Now you’ll be prompted to add a name. Type in the name of the person to whom you’re sending e-mail. Repeat the procedure to add more names. From now on, when you want to send mail to a favored correspondent, just click on Start, choose Send e-mail to, and select the recipient. Outlook Express will open with a new message. The address will be present already, so you can proceed directly to writing the message.

WEB PAGE PRINTING
There are all kinds of ways to print a Web page. You can click on the Print button on the toolbar, choose File, Print, or just press Ctrl-P. You can even print a page without visiting it. To do so, right-click on a URL and then choose Print Target from the menu. The only disadvantage is that you don’t know how long the page is until it finishes printing.

NEWS IN MODERATION
If you use Internet News, you probably know that this is one of the easiest routes your kids can take to access explicit, offensive, and just plain stupid information. If you allow your kids to use Internet News, you can relieve the burden somewhat by subscribing only to moderated groups. Unmoderated groups allow almost anything to be posted, and it’s now common for people to post ads (and even photos) for sites you might consider undesirable. But this is much less likely to happen in moderated groups, where moderators delete inappropriate posts before they ever appear.

NEW POSTING
If you’re in a newsgroup and wish to add your own post to a thread, you should click on Reply to Group. But if you’d rather send a private response to the original message, click on Reply to Author. In the first case, everyone in the newsgroup can see your reply. In the second, only the author will receive it.

ADD TO FAVORITES
When you want to add a site to your Favorites folder, you can navigate to the site and choose Favorites, Add to Favorites. Or you can right-click on the Web page and choose Add to Favorites. When you use this method, the dialog box prompting you for a location still opens. You can also add a site to the Favorites folder before you visit the site. Just right-click on the URL and choose Add to Favorites. Once again, the dialog box opens for more instructions. This is a useful way to collect promising URLs for later exploration. Once you’ve seen them, you can just delete them from your list of Favorites.

FINDING SOME OLD PICTURES
If you visit a site that has some graphics you’d like to copy, you can right-click on the graphic and choose Save Picture As to save it. But what if you neglected to save the picture while you were visiting the page? Let’s suppose you’ve already signed off the Internet when you decide you should have saved a special picture. Should you get back on the Internet and navigate to the page again? It probably isn’t necessary. All you have to do is open Windows Explorer and locate the Temporary Internet Files folder. Find the file you want (this can pose a problem, because the file names are often somewhat cryptic), then drag it to another folder.

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