“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.

“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.

“Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.” Keri Russell

So I was using Internet Explorer 7 the other day and I was annoyed that it was not setup the way I am used to. Now I understand change is good but not when it is slowing me up. First to bring up the Menubar that has all the choices we have been using for the past 15 years. On the right side you will find the Tools button and choose Menubar. Really this is all you have to do bring some sort of normalcy to this browser. Unfortunately you cannot move the Menubar to the top where it belongs. If you are uncomfortable with the current look 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.

“Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done.” Andy Rooney

Today’s post is an easy one. Many times I am teaching a class on the Internet and a student may click on a link that we were not ready to go onto as a class. I need to have the student go back one webpage. Now I can have the student hit the back button at the top but if I am running out of class time I will go for a quick shortcut. The backspace button on the keyboard will go back a page. Now this seems a throwaway tip but I see a lot of people who do not take advantage of such a simple button. It allows you to keep your hands on the keyboard instead of switching to the mouse. However if you go to far back you may need to go forward by using the combination of Shift and Backspace. So if you are looking for a bit of extra speed give this a try.

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!