Surf the Web: Top Ten Tips: Page 2

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Pick two search engines and learn how they work. The difficulty of finding specific information is by far the biggest complaint we hear. Although dozens of search engines are available, pick two, then take the time to learn them well. For more on this read Searching the Web. In case you're interested, our top choices are Google and Yahoo!. Choose your own home page. If you want to begin your surfing by reading a daily newspaper or better yet, Learn the Net, why not start there first? Here's how to select the home page of your choice. Open a new window or use tabbed browsing. While you are downloading one web page, you can access another by opening a second browser window. With Internet Explorer 7.0 under the File menu select New Window. With Firefox 2.0 under the File menu select New Window. With Netscape Navigator 7.0, from the File menu choose New, then Navigator Window. Both Internet Explorer 7.0 and Firefox 2.0 have a new feature called tabbed browser. Instead of opening a new browser window, you just open a new tab in the existing window. You can have multiple tabs open at the same time and easily switch between web pages. A word of caution: Although you can open multiple windows, this will slow down your computer, so don't go overboard. Remember to close the additional windows to free up disk space. Surf during off-peak hours. Commuters experience rush hour, when highways bog down with traffic. The same phenomenon happens occasionally on the Internet--although not nearly as often as in the past--usually in the late afternoon and early evening, when people log on to check e-mail, chat and play games. If you want to avoid the slowdown, go online in the morning or late at night, when traffic is lighter. View sites in text-only mode if you have a slow connection Sure, web designers spend a great amount of time creating wonderful graphics, but it can take quite a while to download large graphic files. If you only have a dial-up and you want to speed things up, turn off the images in your web browser. With Internet Explorer 7.0, under the Tools menu, select Internet Options, then click the Advanced tab. Now uncheck Show Pictures. Thoughtful designers include something called an ALT tag, a written description of the image. If you want to see a particular image, click on the tag with your right mouse button and select View Image. For Mac users, just hold down the mouse button over the graphic. Back Last update: Jan 4, 2008 Related Articles: Web Browsers Anatomy of a Web Page Learn the Net (www.learnthenet.com) is Copyright 1996-2008. Michael Lerner Productions. All Rights Reserved.