by Ed Bott
Regardless of where you find a web page--on a corporate intranet or on a distant server--deep down inside it's nothing more than a document file. And just as you use conventional shortcuts to organize documents stored locally, Internet shortcuts are the most effective way to organize web-based information. When you inspect the properties of an Internet shortcut, you see a page of settings like the one in Figure 31.1.
FIG. 31.1 The target for an Internet shortcut is an URL rather than a local or UNC file specification.
Internet shortcuts behave just like other shortcuts. You can add Internet shortcuts to the desktop or Start menu, move them between folders, send them to other people in mail messages, or rename the shortcut without affecting the target it points to.
If you start the Create Shortcut wizard and enter a valid URL in the Command line box, Windows creates an Internet shortcut. You can drag that shortcut into the browser window or the Address bar to open the target page, or drop it into the Favorites folder or Links bar to make the page more readily accessible.
TIP: It's easy to create a shortcut that points to the web page you're currently viewing in the browser window. Just choose File, Send, Shortcut to Desktop. Once the shortcut is on your desktop, you can rename it, modify its properties, move it to another folder, or send it to a friend or co-worker in an email message.
If you've used a web browser before, you're already familiar with the concept of saving pointers to web sites you visit frequently. Netscape Navigator calls them bookmarks, while prior versions of Internet Explorer saved shortcuts to web pages in a Favorites folder. Internet Explorer 4.0 also lets you collect Internet shortcuts in a Favorites folder, but the user interface for working with Favorites is dramatically different.
TIP: If you had a copy of Netscape Navigator installed when you upgraded to Windows 98, all your Netscape bookmarks would be available in the Favorites folder. This conversion is a one-time process, however; New Navigator bookmarks you create after installing Windows 98 are not saved in the Favorites folder.
Click the Favorites button to open the Favorites Explorer bar; this frame along the left border pushes the main browser window to the right. When you choose an entry from the Favorites list, the page you selected appears in the browser window, as in Figure 31.2.
FIG. 31.2 Click on a shortcut in the Explorer bar at left, and the target page appears in the browser window at the right. Arrows at the top and bottom of the Favorites list let you scroll to additional entries.
The Favorites folder is located within the Windows folder; if you've enabled multi-user settings, each user with a profile on the computer gets a personal Favorites folder. The contents of the Favorites list appear in alphabetical order on the pull-down Favorites menu and in the Explorer bar. To reorder the shortcuts in the Favorites menu, drag any entry to a new position by holding down the mouse button instead of clicking.
TIP: Although the Favorites folder is most useful with Internet shortcuts, you can move any object there, including files, folders, and shortcuts to documents or programs. Clicking on a document or program shortcut in the Explorer bar usually launches the associated application in its own window.
To add the current page to the Favorites list, use one of these two techniques:
You can also use shortcut menus to create new entries in the Favorites folder. Follow this simple procedure:
FIG. 31.3 When you create a new entry in the Favorites folder, give it a new name if necessary to help you identify the page later.
TIP: If the current page contains a link to a page you'd like to add to your Favorites folder, you can use the same technique without having to open the page. Point to the link and right-click, and then follow the steps outlined earlier.
When you add a web page to your Favorites list, you also have the option to download pages automatically at scheduled intervals.
To delete an Internet shortcut in the Favorites folder, point to the shortcut, right-click, and choose Delete.
To rename an Internet shortcut, point to its entry in the list and choose Rename. Edit the name of the shortcut and press Enter to save your changes.
As you add items to the Favorites folder, the list can quickly become too long to work with comfortably. When you reach that point, use subfolders to help organize the Favorites list. You can create an unlimited number of subfolders in the Favorites folder, and you can even add new folders within those subfolders.
With the Favorites Explorer bar open, it's easy to move one item at a time from folder to folder. However, you can't use the Explorer bar to create new folders or to move more than one shortcut at a time. For these more serious organizing tasks, choose Favorites, Organize Favorites; that opens the dialog box shown in Figure 31.4, which includes the full set of tools you need.
FIG. 31.4 Use the buttons along the bottom of this dialog box to organize your Favorites folder. Right-click or use ScreenTips like this one to gather more information about a shortcut.
Moving shortcuts to a new folder is a simple process, as long as you perform the steps in the right order. Open the Organize Favorites dialog box and do the following:
TIP: You can also drag and drop Internet shortcuts within the Organize Favorites dialog box. If your collection of Favorites is relatively small, you'll probably find it easier to rearrange them this way than by using the cumbersome procedure outlined earlier.
Folders appear in alphabetical order at the top of the Favorites Explorer bar. To see the contents of a folder, click on its entry there; the list of shortcuts in the folder appear just below the folder icon, also in alphabetical order. Click the folder icon again to close it.
TIP: For fastest access to the Favorites folder, click the Start menu. The cascading Favorites menu appears between the Programs and Documents choices.
Although the Favorites folder is a convenient way to organize web pages, it still takes a couple of clicks and some scrolling to find a particular page. For the handful of sites you visit most frequently, use the Links toolbar instead. The shortcuts on this toolbar are never more than a click away, and you can easily arrange them for fast, convenient access.
To show or hide the Links bar, right-click on the menu bar and click Links. When you first start Internet Explorer, there are only five shortcuts on the Links bar, and they all point to pages at Microsoft. In less than five minutes, you can give the Links bar a complete makeover and give your productivity a dramatic boost in the process.
TIP: Do you really need all those Microsoft pages on the default Links bar? Not likely. The Internet Start link, for example, is completely unnecessary; anytime you want to jump to home.microsoft.com, just click the spinning Explorer logo in the upper-right corner of the browser window. The Customize Links button leads to a simple Help screen that tells you how to change links; after you learn the technique, you can safely delete this link.
There's no limit to the number of shortcuts you can add to the Links bar. To keep navigation simple, though, you probably want to limit the number of links to no more than 10 or 12, depending on your screen resolution. On the Links bar in Figure 31.5, for example, there are nine shortcuts; adding even one more would push the last link off the screen. When that happens, arrows appear at either side of the Links bar to aid in scrolling.
FIG. 31.5 To squeeze the maximum number of shortcuts onto the Links bar, change long page titles to shorter labels.
To give your Links bar a makeover, follow these steps:
TIP: The width of each shortcut on the Links bar is defined by its label. The shorter the name, the more links you can use. "FedEx," for example, takes up much less space than "Federal Express Home Page," without sacrificing any meaning.
How many pages are there on the World Wide Web? No one can say for sure, but the number is at least 50 million, probably more than 100 million, and growing every day. How do you find specific information in the billions of words and hyperlinks on all those pages? That's where search engines come in.
Internet Explorer offers easy access to several popular search engines through an Explorer bar that works much like the Favorites bar. When you click the Search button, an Explorer bar like the one in Figure 31.6 takes over the left side of the screen.
FIG. 31.6 Use the default search engine or pick another one from the drop-down list in the Explorer bar, and then enter the text you're looking for. Click links in the search results to view pages in the window at the right.
Finding information on the web is a two-step process. First, you have to choose a search engine that's appropriate for the type of information you're looking for. Then you have to construct your search so the pages you're looking for appear at the top of the list.
In general, search engines can be divided into two types. Category-based sites like Yahoo! organize the Internet by classification. Indexed search engines, such as Excite and AltaVista, use web robots to gather text and create searchable databases of information. Most popular search sites now combine both techniques on their home pages.
Category searches are ideal for broad, open-ended questions, while indexed sites are better for finding specific facts. In either case, getting the right results takes practice and some basic understanding of how the search engine works. To avoid playing favorites, Internet Explorer picks one of its featured search engines at random every day and spotlights that choice when you click the Search button. You can accept the default, or you can study Table 31.1 and make your own selection using the drop-down list.
| Name | URL | Description |
| AOL NetFind | www.aol.com/netfind | America Online calls on a huge database of reviews to help you find people, companies, places, and information. Powered by Excite technology, it's open to non-AOL members as well. |
| Excite | www.excite.com | If you can't find it using Excite, it probably isn't on the Internet. Click on "Channels" to find information by topic or use its massive database to search the entire web. |
| Infoseek | www.infoseek.com | Enter text or click on topic links to find information. Jump to Infoseek's main page to try its impressive capability to process plain-English questions. |
| Lycos | www.lycos.com | One of the oldest search engines around, Lycos began as a research project at Carnegie-Mellon University. Today it offers Yahoo!-style category lists and superb international support. |
| Yahoo! | www.yahoo.com | The original category-based search engine now uses AltaVista's indexing software to do keyword searches as well. Make sure you choose the correct search method before sending your request. |
TIP: Don't like any of the built-in search options? Then choose List of All Providers from the drop-down list in the Search bar. This option opens Microsoft's all-in-one search page, with links to dozens of general-purpose and specialized search sites.
After you've selected a search engine, follow these steps to carry out your search:
FIG. 31.7 This search produces a staggering 247,558 matches, but the most relevant pages appear in the top 10. Use the Next button to move through the list 10 links at a time.
TIP: There's no need to click the Search button if you simply want to look for a keyword or two. If you type find, go, or ? in the Address bar, followed by one or more words, Internet Explorer's AutoSearch feature submits your request to Yahoo! for processing, returning results in the main browser window.If you've found a favorite search engine, you can tell Internet Explorer to take you to that site instead of Yahoo! each time you use AutoSearch. To make the change, you first have to download Microsoft's Tweak UI utility, one of the unofficial Power Toys for Windows 95 and Windows 98. You can find all the Power Toys, with full instructions for their use, at
http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/info/powertoys.htm
After installing Tweak UI, open Control Panel and start the utility; click the General tab and use the drop-down list to change the default search engine.
How can you guarantee better results when you search the web? Try these techniques:
When you find a search that you think you'll want to reuse, follow these steps to save it:
A web page can consist of a single paragraph, or it can run on for tens of thousands of words. Internet Explorer's Find feature lets you search for words or phrases on the current page or within a selected frame. This feature can be extremely helpful when a search engine turns up a list of pages and you're trying to find the matching word or phrase in a specific page. To begin, press Ctrl+F and enter your text in the Find dialog box shown in Figure 31.8.
FIG. 31.8 Use the Find dialog box to search for text on the current page.
Note that the Find dialog box searches only text that actually appears on the page; it won't look at hidden text or HTML tags in the source for the page. To search for hidden text or tags, choose View, Source and use Notepad's Search menu.
TROUBLESHOOTING:Your search for text turned up no matches, but you're certain the word you're looking for is on the page. Looking for text on frame-based pages can produce unexpected results if you're not careful. On these pages, the Find feature searches only in the current frame, not in all frames visible in the browser window. Before you open the Find dialog box and enter your search text, make sure you click in the frame in which you want to search.
In addition to the cache in the Temporary Internet Files folder, Internet Explorer keeps a record of every URL you load. This History list is indispensable when you want to return to a page you visited recently, but you can't remember its address. If you've enabled multiple user settings on your Windows 98 PC, each user who logs in gets a private History folder.
Click the History button to open an Explorer bar similar to the one in Figure 31.9. The History bar looks and acts just like the Favorites bar, snapping into position along the left edge of the browser window and pushing the main viewing window to the right.
FIG. 31.9 Every time you visit a web page, it gets an entry in this History list. If you can remember when you saw the page, you can find it here.
NOTE: From the Windows Explorer, you can examine the History list by double-clicking the History icon. Individual shortcuts are not actually stored in the History folder, however; instead, Internet Explorer uses an internal database to manage the collection of shortcuts, with a single data file for each day. The entire collection is organized in one or more hidden folders. Although it's possible to view these hidden files from a DOS prompt, there's no way to see their contents without using Explorer's system extensions.
By default, the History folder keeps a pointer to every page you've accessed for the past 20 days. When you click the History button to open the Explorer bar, you see the list of shortcuts organized by day, with the most recent day's collection at the bottom of the list. Click on the entry for any day to see the list of shortcuts for that day, with a single entry for each resource location. Click again on any of these entries to see a shortcut for each page within that domain. When you click on an Internet shortcut in the History list, Internet Explorer loads the page in the browser window at the right.
TIP: To increase or decrease the size of the History list, choose View, Internet Options and change the number of days to keep pages in history. Use the spinner control on the General tab to select a number between 0 and 999. Choosing 0 clears the History list every day, although you can still recall any page you visited earlier in the same day.
Although you cannot directly add an Internet shortcut to the History list, you can copy an entry from the History list to a variety of places: the desktop, the Start menu, the Favorites folder, or an email message, for example. Drag a shortcut from the History list to any legal destination or use the right-click menu to copy the shortcut to the Windows Clipboard.
Internet Explorer allows you to empty the History folder completely or to delete entries one at a time. Clearing out the History folder can reclaim a modest amount of disk space, and it can also make the list easier to navigate. But a more practical reason to remove items from this list is for privacy reasons--to keep another user from seeing the list of sites you've visited recently.
Internet Explorer's cache and History folders work together exceptionally well when you choose to work offline. With the History folder visible in the Explorer bar, you can choose File, Work Offline and view any files stored in the cache, even if you have no current connection to the Internet.
When you work with Internet Explorer offline, a network icon with a red X appears in the status bar along the bottom of the browser window. Except for that indicator, you can browse pages in the History cache just as if you were working with a live Internet connection. When you point to a link that isn't cached locally, the pointer changes shape, and you see the dialog box shown in Figure 31.10. Before you can view the selected page, you must open an Internet connection.
FIG. 31.10 The X in the status bar means you're working offline. You'll see this pointer when you attempt to access a page that isn't stored in the web cache.
Successfully transferring a web page to paper can be as simple as clicking a button, although complex page designs require some preparation for best results.
To print a full web page that doesn't include frames, click the Print button on the Standard toolbar. This action sends the current page to the printer without displaying any additional dialog boxes. Internet Explorer scales the page to fit on the standard paper size for the default printer. The entire web document prints, complete with graphics, even if only a portion of the page is visible in the browser window.
TIP: By default, Internet Explorer ignores any background images or colors when printing. That behavior is by design, because most of these decorations simply make printed text harder to read. To add background images or colors to printed pages, choose View, Internet Options, click the Advanced tab, and check the appropriate box in the Printing section. Be sure to reverse the process after printing.
For more complex pages, especially those that include frames, choose File, Print (or press Ctrl+P). That opens the Print dialog box, shown in Figure 31.11, and lets you specify how you want to arrange the page on paper.
FIG. 31.11 Watch the display at the left of the Print Frames box to see how a frame-based page appears when printed. Follow these steps for maximum control over any printed page:
CAUTION: An option at the bottom of the Print dialog box lets you print all linked documents along with the current page. Exercise this option with extreme care, because printing indiscriminately in this fashion can consume a ream of paper with a single click.
To control most options that Internet Explorer applies before printing a web page, choose File, Page Setup. By using this dialog box (shown in Figure 31.12), you can change the orientation, margins, and paper specifications for the current page. More importantly, though, you can specify a header and footer to print on each page.
FIG. 31.12 Use these formatting codes to specify a header and footer to appear on each page you print. Internet Explorer saves the format you enter here as your default.
You can enter any text as part of the header or footer; in addition, Internet Explorer uses a set of arcane codes, each prefixed by an ampersand, to add information about the current page to the header or footer. Table 31.2 lists each of these codes.
| To Print This | Enter This Code |
| Window title | &w |
| Page address (URL) | &u |
| Date (short format) | &d |
| Date (long format) | &D |
| Time (default format) | &t |
| Time (24-hour format) | &T |
| Single ampersand | && |
| Current page number | &p |
| Total number of pages | &P |
| Right-align following text | &btext |
| Center Text1, right-align Text2 | &btext1&btext2 |
NOTE: If you can't remember the codes for headers and footers, click the question mark icon in the title bar of the Page Setup dialog box and point to the Header or Footer box. Watch out for a bug in the documentation, though: Any text you add after the characters &b will be right-aligned, not centered, in the header or footer.
Only the simplest web pages consist of a single, simple document. More often, the page you see in your browser consists of one or more HTML documents and several linked images. There's no way to save all the elements on the entire page in one smooth operation. Instead, when you choose File, Save As, Internet Explorer saves the underlying HTML document and ignores any images or pages linked to that page. (You can also choose to save the current page as a plain-text document instead of an HTML-formatted page.)
To save graphics, frames, and other files linked to the current page, you must right-click on each one and choose Save Target As from the shortcut menu. Right-click on any link and use the same menu choice to save a linked page without opening it.
TIP: With the help of a handy Internet Explorer keyboard shortcut, you can turn any web graphic into wallpaper for your desktop. When you find an image you'd like to install on the desktop, right-click and choose Set As Wallpaper.
You can also edit any web page by loading it directly from your browser into FrontPage Express. By using the web browser, open the page you want to edit, and then click the Edit button on the Standard toolbar. You can also create a shortcut to the current page, and then right-click on that shortcut icon and choose Edit.
One of the most common ways to distribute files of all types over the Internet is with FTP servers. Unlike web servers, which are designed primarily to assemble hypertext documents for viewing in a browser window, FTP servers use File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to move files between computers. Internet Explorer is capable of acting as a basic FTP client.
To connect directly to an FTP site using your web browser, enter the name of the site in the Address bar. Because FTP servers don't include graphics support, the display you see in the browser window is as austere as the one in Figure 31.13.
Click on any link in the FTP window to begin downloading that file. When you click on a link to a file stored on an FTP server, Internet Explorer handles the details of logging on to that server and negotiating the details of how to transfer the file. If Internet Explorer succeeds in connecting to the FTP server, you typically see the dialog box shown in Figure 31.14. Choose the option labeled Save This _program to Disk, and then designate a name and destination for the downloaded file to begin the transfer.
FIG. 31.13 Don't expect fancy graphics or menus when you connect to an FTP site. Although this listing is plain, it's easy to find your way around.
FIG. 31.14 Under most circumstances, you want to save a file rather than run it directly from an FTP server.
Based on the size of the file and the speed of your current connection, Internet Explorer attempts to estimate the time remaining on your download. This process isn't always successful; in particular, it fails when the FTP server at the other end of the connection fails to report crucial information about the file you've chosen to download. In those cases, the dialog box you see tells you how much of the file has been downloaded so far.
When downloading a file of any sort using IE4, you see a dialog box like the one in Figure 31.15, which may include an estimate of the amount of time remaining for the file to download.
FIG. 31.15 You see this progress dialog box whenever Internet Explorer downloads a file to your computer.
TIP: If you minimize the Download dialog box, you see the progress of your download in the label and ScreenTip of the Taskbar button. You can close the browser window or switch to another page without interrupting the download.
Many FTP servers allow anonymous access without a designated user name and password. Microsoft, for example, uses its FTP server to freely distribute patches and updates for Windows and other products. Internet Explorer handles anonymous logons easily. Other FTP servers, however, may refuse to allow logon unless you enter valid account information; this is especially true of corporate sites intended for use only by employees and other authorized users. Because Internet Explorer does not properly respond to password prompts from FTP servers, you have to construct a custom URL to connect to a password-protected FTP server. Click in the Address bar and enter the URL in the following format:
ftp://<username>:<password>@<ftp_server>/<url-path>
Substitute the proper username, password, and FTP server address in the preceding example.
Because Internet Explorer offers only the most basic FTP capabilities, it is incapable of connecting properly with some FTP servers. If you encounter such a server, use the Windows 98 command-line FTP client instead. Follow these steps to download a file from ftp.microsoft.com; the same techniques should work with any site:
For rudimentary help with FTP commands, type help at the FTP> prompt.
ON THE WEB: If you use FTP regularly, invest in a full-featured FTP client like FTP Explorer. You can find this shareware product at
© Copyright, Macmillan Computer Publishing. All rights reserved.
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