Internet Basic Tips
Navigation
Go to the Previous Page
You can click on the leftward facing arrow on your toolbar but it's easier to just press the Backspace key. To go to the next page, press Shift+ Backspace.
Easy Entry for .com Websites
When visiting a .com site, just type the root domain name (e.g. mistywindow or yahoo) into the address box, press ctrl - enter. This will automatically add the rest of the address — http://www. and .com. Only works for .com sites.
Searching Basics
Narrow Searches
To reduce the number of irrelevant results when searching the internet, place quotation marks around phrases. This restricts the search to the specific phrase, rather than to the individual words. e.g. glasgow opera house brought up 1,760,000 results. "glasgow opera house" brought up only 10.
Upper case (capital) letters are not required in search engines. Upper and lower case are treated identically.
Restrict Searches
If you know the URL (website address) suffix include it at the end of your query. For example: .net, .com.au, .co.nz, .org.uk. or restrict it to a country: .ca, .za. You still get some rogues, but it helps.
This works even more efficiently if you insert the search restriction instruction - site:
Here's an example of the site: restriction in use: cambridge site:edu - this would search for references to Cambridge within educational institutes. You would get a predominance of references to Educational bodies called Cambridge and/or such bodies in places called Cambridge.
Other examples of this usage:
- olympics site:org
- antivirus site:cz
- "income tax" site:govt.nz
- "mercedes-benz" site:de
Finding Definitions
In the Google search bar type define: followed by a space then the word you want defined or "a phrase" between quotation marks.
Examples
-
define: "whale shark"
-
define:html
Very useful for that computer term which I haven't entered in http://www.mistywindow.com/glossary.htm yet!
Favicons
You'll have noticed that some websites that you save to your Favorites have their own distinctive little icons instead of the standard little Internet Explorer icon.
These are called favicons, they're useful in helping to pick sites out from a list and brighten up your display. windows doesn't handle them very well and they often disappear.
There's a great little PC Magazine Utility called FavOrg available here: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Bookmark-Managers/favorg.shtml. It zips through your Favorites in a couple of minutes, restores all favicons from the original sites and it tags lost, moved and invalid links.
