“You affect the world by what you browse.” Tim Berners-Lee

For many years I have led students away from Internet Explorer to another browser. I tell them there are better, faster, and more secure choices out there. The problem is that they leave the classes and are confused what to download and how to do it. Here is a site that makes it easy to find where to download the browsers. Their main goal seems to be to get people from Internet Explorer 6, a rather insecure, in my opinion, poor browser. All this page does is link where to download the browsers but not which one to choose. Here is a page that rates them and gives you a bit of direction on what to download. Give a new browser a try.

"Nothing is too small to know, and nothing is too big to attempt." William Van Horne

Here at PPL we are and have been making the dreaded 2007 Office switcheroo. For some it has been a nonissue and for others it has been a real pain. One example is the size of the icons and how small they can be but for others it has been the size of the text in Outlook. In Excel and Word there are easy to find Zoom tools at the bottom right. In Outlook it is there but is several clicks away and there isn’t a default setting for this so it won’t be the same the next time you go to it. One quick fix for this came up while we were trying to fix it. If you hold CTRL and use the scroll wheel on your mouse you can zoom into the text. This is of course assuming you have a scroll wheel on your mouse. You do have one right? If not a new mouse that has one is priced around 10-15 dollars. By using both the button and mouse you can increase or reduce the text quite quickly. This is a lot easier than guessing the zoom percentage. The nice thing is that it seems to work in many programs. Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer both have it. Firefox has it as well but with a nice added feature. After you zoomed in and then go about your business to some other website when you return to that site it will be the zoomed size for that page only. You can go into the view menu of Firefox and then to reset to change it back. Sometimes you never know what little extras you will find until you look for something else. As for the Outlook issue of it being too small and being changed automatically that is a non starter. There does not seem to be anything that will correct that all the time.

“You have to block everything out and be extremely focused and be relaxed and mellow too.” Jennifer Capriati

As I explore the net I am inundated with advertising and it is driving me insane. Now I understand that sites need to make a living and I really don’t mind text ads but the ones with animation and flashing nonsense are just too much. So I use Flashblock which is an add-on to the browser Firefox. This is one of those great extras that make the web so much more enjoyable. Once installed, anytime it sees flash, it will block it and put a big f in the center of where the animation should be. However if you realize you would like to see it, like in the case of YouTube, give it a click and it will start up instantly. Two reasons I love this. The less to load per page the faster everything moves. The second is that I am no longer bothered by flashing dancing ads. I have only run into one issue that is CNN’s video page would not load because it knew I had a flash blocker installed. To get around this I just opened up another browser. So if you are annoyed by just a bit too much stuff give this one a try.

My Dad used to say 'always fight fire with fire', which is probably why he got thrown out of the the fire brigade. Harry Hill

I have been toting Firefox as the one of the best browsers for a long time. It truly has been good and inventive however it did have some problems like the fact over time it seems to slow down until you restart the application. As of yesterday Firefox 3 is out and ready to be used. I installed it on my home machine with no problems and I am loving every part of it. According to the press release it is 2-3 times faster and it seems to be. The same pages that were dragging to bring up pictures in 2 are zipping onto the page. Also other features like the Awesome Bar that is the address bar but with the ability to keyword search through your history of use is great. Some features will not be as noticeably cool but they are extremely handy like the new security measure for antiphishing. Firefox is trying to set a world record of downloads starting yesterday for a 24 hour period. I really recommend that you jump on board and take a look at the new and very highly improved Firefox. Check out the video introduction that shows you all the new features. Give this one a try

“A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.” George Moore

I have one more small rant about Internet Explorer 7 and then I swear I am done. I have suggested before to switch browsers to something like Firefox or Opera because they are overall better. A feature that has been standard on those browsers and is now on the IE 7 is the search box at the top right hand corner. The problem is that with most searches Google or Yahoo have been the standards in that box because they are what most people use. However on IE 7 the default is Microsoft’s live Search. I personally am not happy with the results of this search engine. So how do we customize this for our personal choices? First we click on the arrow on the right hand side of the search box and choose find more providers. Then choose the search engines you want to add from the left. Every time you click one it will ask you if you want to add it. Click OK. When finished choosing go back to the search box and click on the right arrow and choose change search defaults. Once there click the preferred search engine and finally click set default. Now the search box will search where you want. If you do not like their setting give this a try.

“My grandmother is over eighty and still doesn't need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle.” Henry Youngman

In the last post I talked about a keyboard shortcut and I thought about one more I use all the time. When I am home relaxing I usually kick my feet up while using the computer. This means I am fairly far away from the screen and the lettering is slowly becoming to small to read. However there is a nice set of shortcuts to increase or decrease the font size easily. To enlarge text use CTRL and + (plus sign) and to reduce it use CTRL and – (minus sign). This works great when you encounter a site that is just to hard to read. The only problem with this is that some sites are set to a specific sizing and it may throw it off the page a bit. If you do not like the size just use the keys to return to normal. If things are becoming a small give this one a try.

“Each bird must sing with his own throat” Henrik Ibsen

I use Microsoft Outlook for email but it is not the only game in town. Now I have written before of open source software. They are alternate choices like OpenOffice and are free. One choice that many people switch to is Thunderbird. Thunderbird is an email client which means it retrieves your email from all your different email boxes making it easier to get your mailing done. It is from the company that created Firefox and like it’s predecessor it has a lot of nice enhancements like message tagging, a way of categorizing email for later searches. Their search features and navigation are nice as well. However if your worry is one of security they do well in this area with anti-phishing features and privacy enhancements. You can also change the look of it using themes. Now I am not saying to change your email client for kicks but if grow dissatisfied with the one you are using give this one a try.

“I do not read advertisements - I would spend all my time wanting things” Franz Kafka

I have written here before about the power of Firefox to block ads. This would be OK if it were not for the fact that the static image ad is changing to a moving ad. Firefox does not have the power to stop these alone. An add-on helps to block this type of ad. AdBlock is that add-on. Once it is installed in Firefox, it will give you the ability to right click on an ad to block it. The feature I really like is that it can block the frame that it is in and the ad itself. This means that it will not leave a big blank box on your screen where the blocked ad was. So far it is not 100% effective but I am willing to use it even if it only works most of the time. This really is a fantastic tool if you tend to get distracted by all the flashing ads. Give it a try and start blocking today!

“The best defense is a good offence”

Ok I am on almost any site these days and I see an ad for Match.com or some other site with nearly naked people. It does not matter where you go, you are hit with adverts that are coming close to getting people fired. Should you stop going to sites where the information is good but the ads are bad? No I say! Use the option in the browser Firefox to block these images. Just point to any of the images and right click on them and choose “Block Images from ….”. Just be careful to not block all the images on a site because you will start losing important information. It is easy to fix though. Just point to any of the images that you know are there but cannot see and right click and click the “Block Images from ….” again to uncheck it. Give it a try and tell us how it works!

Holy sardine! Batman: Hand down the shark repellent Batspray!

Lets say it is 6:45 PM. I just got home and I am tired. I check my email and my bank says there is a major problem with my account. They tell me that I must click on this link to solve the issue. I then see my bank's website and I type in my password and username and hit enter, but nothing happens.

I have just been taken in by a scam. The website looked legitimate but if I had a way to look back at the address with some tools, I would have seen that it was fake.

Phishing is a type of scam that uses scare tactics to get you to give up information. Some basics: first I should have looked at the salutation. The fake ones will usually say Dear [your email address]. The bank knows my name so they will use it. Next it will ask me to click on a link. The problem is that you can make a link look like whatever you want. It is recommended that you never click the link but instead go directly to the website in question. If there is trouble they will let you know!

Spoofstick is another tool for your utility belt that will help you spot the criminal element. When downloaded it becomes part of your browser. It will tell you if you are on the real website or not. I recommend that you go to their website and read through the examples.

Remember if you get a warning email, keep a cool head and think first, then go to the website directly. Give it a try!

Always keep a fox in your car

The question is one of vehicles. If 80% of people drive a type of car then it only makes sense that the thieves of the world will learn to break into that vehicle first. Internet Explorer is the most used browser and that means that workarounds and hacks are targeted for IE first. If this is true then I need another browser. The one that people have been switching to for a while is Mozilla Firefox. I use it because it is safer and I get less pop-ups. I also use it because it is faster and easier. It uses tabbed browsing which means I only open one window but all my open websites are just a click away. Also if there is a known problem, Firefox seems to fix it quickly by sending updates out when needed. Another useful feature is the add-ons. They range from the useful like color coding your tabs to the useless like the Abe Vigoda’s status add-on. There is also a fanlike following for Firefox. Check this image taken from space. Give it a try!