Internet Tips & Tricks

Intelligent guessing

Looking for a company's Web site but not sure where to start? You can, of course, use a search engine to track it down. But here's a much quicker technique that often pays off: simply use the company's name.

For instance, if you want to locate drivers for your Hewlett-Packard printer, type www.hewlett-packard.com or www.hp.com (hp is a common abbreviation for Hewlett-Packard) into your browser's address box and see if you make a match. Chances are, you will. You can also tack "au" onto the end of the address if you want to see if there's an Australian site for the company; the suffix "ca" will turn up Canadian companies; and so on. One pitfall: Many UK-based companies use the suffix co.uk instead of the expected com.uk. For example, to visit the online version of the British newspaper The Times, type www.thetimes.co.uk.

(By the way, all three of the addresses for Hewlett-Packard – www.hewlett-packard.com, www.hp.com and www.hp.com.au – work. Companies often have multiple addresses which point to the same site (or to subsidiaries), to ensure customers can find them easily.)

Smart addresses

Browsers have been getting progressively more intelligent about Web addresses. It used to be that you had to type the full address, including http:// at the beginning. Then they did away with the need for the http:// and you could get what you wanted without it.

Recent generations of browsers go one step further: you don't even need the www prefix and com suffix. For any Web address that takes the form www.sitename.com, all you need to do is type sitename in the address box and hit Ctrl-Enter. Unfortunately, this doesn't work for addresses ending in .com.au or.co.uk, for example. Nor will it work when you're looking for an FTP site or other non-Web Internet address. Then you'll have to provide the full address. The one exception is if you use Crazy Browser, a free browser which includes among its many attractive features the ability to customise the browser so it automatically adds non-.com suffixes such as .co.uk.

Auto-complete

Save yourself typing and let your browser do the work: both Netscape Communicator and Internet Explorer feature auto-completion of addresses. Each browser stores a list of recently visited Web sites. When you start to type an address, the browser will attempt to auto-complete the full address for you by looking up matching entries from sites you've visited in the past. If the auto-completed entry is incorrect, simply keep typing.

What's my IP?

Sometimes online you need to know your IP address. This is the address which identifies your computer on the Internet, and it's how information you request gets sent to you correctly, instead of ending up on someone else's computer. If you play online games with others and in some other circumstances, you'll need your IP address to create a direct connection between you and another Internet user. As your IP is usually dynamically assigned – that is, you get a different IP each time you connect to the Internet – how do you know what yours is?

It's easy to find out:

1. Click Start -> Run.
2. In the Run dialog box, type winipcfg and click OK.

A dialog box will be displayed, containing your IP address as well as other information.

Note: Microsoft doesn't include the Windows IP Configuration (winipcfg) tool with Windows 2000 or Windows XP. However, you can download a version for those operating systems directly from Microsoft. It has a slightly different name (wntipcfg), so once you've installed it, to run it do this:

1. Click Start -> Run.
2. In the Run dialog box, type wntipcfg and click OK.

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Searching

Longer means smaller

It pays to be specific when using search engines. Say you're interested in interspecies communication between dolphins and humans, and you type dolphins into a search engine. The result? Thousands of hits, but maybe only a handful will mention interspecies communication. However, if you search for dolphins AND communications or dolphins AND "interspecies communication" (the syntax will differ slightly depending on which search engine you use, but this is the most common form) you'll get a much more focused set of search results.

Voyeur

"Cheat codes for Quake"; "loch AND monster"; "adult"; "data blades". Ever wondered what other people are searching for on the Net while you're doing your own scavenging?

Metaspy is a snooping program which lets you see what terms other people are using to search the Net. Metaspy displays random search commands currently in use on the Metacrawler search engine, and updates the list every 15 seconds.

The missing links

Web administrators use a file called robots.txt to tell search engines which pages in the site not to index. That means, of course, you can use that same robots.txt file to find some of the cute stuff that's hiding in a particular site. You may find some of the pages are password protected or otherwise off limits, but you can nevertheless enjoy some interesting browsing.

To get a look at robots.txt, type the address www.sitename.com/robots.txt (substituting the correct domain name for 'sitename'). You can then try appending the listed files to the site's main URL.

Meta searches

If you're having trouble finding matches for a specific search inquiry, try a meta-search engine such as IXQuick. These search engines take your inquiry and pass it to a group of other search engines. You can usually specify in some way which engines should be searched and how thoroughly a search should be conducted. In this way, you can often track down an elusive reference with a single query, instead of trawling through half-a-dozen separate search engines.

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Browsing Performance

Learn the rhythm

Connections on the Internet vary second by second. You can try a site one minute and find it unavailable, then 30 seconds later you can get through. Or you can connect to a site and find it infuriatingly slow, but try again five minutes later and things flow beautifully. The trick is knowing whether it's worthwhile hitting the reload button a couple of times, or whether you've hit a very heavy traffic flow and you should try later.

There are no hard and fast rules for assessing this. In fact, a lot of it is done by feel. The crucial tools that will help you decide whether a connection is merely slow or is likely to time out are your modem indicator lights, in particular the receive data (RD) and send data (SD) lights. By watching these lights frequently while you're online you can become adept at working out how your connection is proceeding. There's a typical rhythm to a good connection that you'll become accustomed to. Even sluggish connections have their own rhythm – with elongated pauses – which will let you know that if you just hang on, the page will load.

The absence of any activity in the SD and RD indicators for anything more than about 10 seconds, however, almost always indicates a connection that's not proceeding. The exception is when you've filled in a form or accessed a site with a database, and you're now waiting for the site to acknowledge receipt of your form or look something up in its database.

With an external modem, position it so you can see the lights while you're surfing. If you have an internal modem, or would like an even easier visual cue, you can display a modem status indicator in your Taskbar which displays the SD and RD activity. To do so, in Windows 98 and Windows Me:

1. Open My Computer and then Dial-Up Networking (in Windows Me, click Start -> Settings -> Control Panel and double-click the Dial-up Networking icon).
2. In Dial-Up Networking, highlight the dial-up connection you use to connect to the Internet (don't open it, just highlight it).
3. Open the Connections Menu in the Dial-Up Networking folder and choose Settings.
4. Place a checkmark beside the option to Show An Icon On Taskbar After Connected.
5. Click OK.

To do the same thing in Windows XP:

1. Click Start -> My Network Places.
2. In My Network Places, click View Network Connections under Network Tasks.
3. Right-click your dial-up network connection's icon and choose Properties from the pop-up menu.
4. Place a checkmark beside the option to Show Icon In Notification Area When Connected.
5. Click OK.

If you watch the modem indicators over a period of time, you'll find you develop a good sense about your connections. You'll get additional information by watching the status indicator on your browser's status line. If a connection seems slow, click your browser's Stop button and then hit Reload to see if you can speed things up. If there's still no response, it may be worth going elsewhere and checking back later.

Multiple windows

Your browser may have to wait for a page to download, but you don't. Try opening two or more browser windows. It won't degrade performance much and, often enough, will increase your browsing efficiency.

You can read one page in one window while downloading another page or even starting a file transfer in a second window.

To open a new window, press Ctrl-N. To open a specific link in a new window, hold down the Shift key while clicking the link.

If you find a link you want to check out on the current page you're reading, drag the link into the second browser window and let it load there while you continue to read.

If you want to keep track of what's happening in both windows simultaneously, minimise all other windows except your browser windows and then right-click the time in the Taskbar and choose Tile Windows Vertically.

Go non-graphical

Most of the time, it's the high-bandwidth features of Web pages, such as graphics, sound, video and so on, that make them so enjoyable. But when your object is to find information rather than to surf, those whiz-bang features can obstruct rather than enhance your Web experience.

If you're searching for text-based material and you want to maximise your efficiency, turn off the graphics and sound features in your browser. In Navigator, you'll find the controls in the Edit Menu, Preferences option. In Internet Explorer, open the Tools Menu, Internet Options, and then click the Advanced tab. Scroll down the list until you find Multimedia, and you'll find settings for sound, graphics, animation and video.

Pure text browsing

While you can turn graphics and sound downloading on or off in Navigator and Internet Explorer, nothing quite beats the performance of a completely text-based browser.

For lightning fast, if rather boring, excursions on the Net, try a browser like Lynx. Versions for Windows 95 and Windows NT or 386 (or better) DOS-based machines are available from FDisk.com's Lynx Page. You can get more information about Lynx at http://lynx.browser.org/.

DOS browsing

There's no doubt that Windows is prettier to look at than DOS, but DOS still beats Windows all hollow when it comes to speed and efficient use of hardware resources.

If you're looking for speedy browsing and you're prepared to be a little adventurous, you can abandon Windows browsing and try a DOS browser instead. Similarly, you can browse the Net even on an old 8086 machine (if you've managed to keep one running as long as this) by using a DOS browser.

If you'd like to browse the Net from DOS, there's a great page of links to DOS browser downloads at www.fdisk.com/doslynx/. This page includes links to both graphical and non-graphical browsers, plus other DOS gems including e-mail and digital security programs.

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Miscellaneous browsing tips

Browsing on the cheap

One of the problems with new Web technologies is they assume you have a cheap connection to the Internet. This is all very well in most parts of the US where standard Internet fees are $20/month for unlimited hours. Elsewhere, connection time is a rather more valuable commodity.

To save money and free up your phone line, open the File Menu and choose Work Offline. Internet Explorer will disconnect you and let you work from pages stored in your hard drive cache. If you click a link to a page not in your cache, you get the option of going online to retrieve it or staying offline.

Working offline is particularly effective when you Subscribe to sites and download their content.

Printing Frames

When you print a page containing frames, you don't always print the part of the document you were after.

In Internet Explorer you get control over frame printing. Choose Print from the File Menu, and then select whether to print the page as it appears on screen, print a selected frame, or print each frame on an individual page.

Customising printed page headers

The File Menu, Page Setup option lets you customise the headers and footers you include on printed pages, but the options are more than a little cryptic. Here's a summary:

&w Window Title
&u URL
&d date in short format
&D date in long format
&t time in format specified in Regional Settings in Control Panel
&T time in 24-hour format
&p current page number
&P total number of pages
&& an ampersand
&b centre the text immediately following this code
&b&b centre the text immediately following the first &b and right-justify the text following the second &b

Sharing Web pages

Would you like to send the current Web page to a friend or colleague? Click the Mail button and choose Send A Page to send a complete copy of the current page; or choose Send A Link to send a link to the page via e-mail. A new message window will open in your mail program with the Web page or link inserted as an attachment.

Creating a Desktop Shortcut

When you find a site you wish to revisit, but which doesn't qualify for your Favorites list, open the File Menu, choose Send and then Shortcut to Desktop to place a shortcut to the page on your Desktop. Double-clicking the shortcut will open your browser and connect you to the page.

Download locally

The most popular file download sites can get choked with traffic. Make sure you try mirror sites – sites that contain an exact copy of the contents of a major site. For example, if you live in Australia, using Australian mirror sites will often help you avoid delays and international congestion. Similarly, if you're located in the UK, you should first try your local mirror sites.

If your local sites are slow, use a site that's in a 'dead' time zone. You'll usually find around 2am to 5am is a good time to access files anywhere on the globe, so look for sites that are geographically located in this time slot.

FTP don't HTTP

Browsers these days are able to function as basic FTP (File Transfer Protocol) programs as well. You simply type an FTP address in your browser's address box and away you go.

Pay attention to the adjective basic in the sentence above. Your Web browser is a very poor substitute for a good FTP program. Not only will an FTP program, such as CuteFTP or WS_FTP, provide many more options and let you access sites that might be closed to your browser, but they are also far more efficient at downloading files. Browsers don't always maintain a constant connection to a site; an FTP program will, making your download faster and less prone to dropping out.

Useful DOS Utilities

It's easy to forget that DOS is still lurking behind Windows 95, 98 and Me. But there are a couple of DOS utilities that can provide fascinating information about your Internet connections. You can also use these utilities in Windows XP via the Command Prompt. Note that in Windows XP the two utilities are located in the \Windows\System32 folder, so you may first need to log on to that folder via the Command Prompt (CD \windows\system32) and then use the utility.

ping: Use the ping command to find out if a site's server is down or responding very slowly:

1. Connect to the Internet.
2. Open a DOS/Command Prompt window.
3. In Windows XP, you may first need to log on to your System32 folder. To do so, type CD \windows\system32 and press Enter in the Command Prompt window.
4. Type ping www.sitename.com (substituting the correct URL in place of www.sitename.com) and press Enter.

If the server is down or very slow, you'll receive a Request Timed Out message. Otherwise, you'll see a series of numbers showing how long it took for the server to respond to your command.

tracert: This is the trace route command, and that's just what it does: it traces the route you take to access a particular server. The tracert command will give you a listing of all the servers you pass through on your way to your final destination (up to a maximum of 30 hops – if your route is longer than that, you're likely to give up waiting for the connection), and the time it takes for each segment of the journey. You use tracert in the same way as you use ping:

1. Connect to the Internet.
2. Open a DOS/Command Prompt window. (In XP, log onto the \windows\system32 folder if needed.)
3. Type tracert www.sitename.com, substituting the correct URL in the command.