Merlin's Tips, Hints, Shortcuts	Web Browsing Tips and Cautions
			Feel free to print this page for future reference.
	A useful Web page of help, tips and clues for Internet users.

Browser Software	There are 2 popular (commercial) browser software packages, and others as well. Mozilla's Firefox Netscape Communicator, and Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE). For more information, refer to each of these Web sites.
Reduce your on-line (ISP) costs	Don't forget that some ISPs charge you for every minute that you are connected. There are a number of ways to reduce these costs. Look at: Browsing off-line (further below).
Cautions for Cable-modem users	If your connection to your ISPis via cable-modem, and is essentially connected all the time, then a hacker can potentially gain access to your PC, and load a virus, or zombie software (for use in a DoS attack against another computer system). You can help to avoid this by installing a good software firewall product on your PC (eg. ZoneAlarm). See: http://www.zonealarm.com
Printing Web Pages	You can print Web pages! Having trouble printing Web pages? You might need to click the mouse button, with the mouse cursor somewhere in the "frame" that you want to print. This will make that frame the Active frame. (See the comment about frames in the Glossary extract from Merlin's Techno-Guide - it will open in a new Window.)
Bookmarks and Favourites	Different browser packages usually offer this feature, but sometimes by different names. Bookmarks and Favourites are the same thing -- a reference to a Web site page that you want to store to enable a future easy connection to the site.
Managing Lots of Bookmarks or Favourites	If you have lots of these, your browser usually has a way of creating folders (and sub-folders) for different categories of Web sites, so that you can store them directly into a specific folder, and maybe move them around later.
Browsing Off-line	There are ways of storing Web pages to: (a) read them later off-line without paying ISP connection fees; or (b) for future reference (eg. a collection of recipes); or (c) to print them on a slow printer later when off-line. Try: (i) File, Save As, or (ii) your computer's cache might temporarily keep them long enough; or (iii) investigate a third party Web browser tool that does this for you (search the software Download sites like http://www.tucows.com/ or http://www.cnet.com/. [or maybe try: Surfsaver at http://www.surfsaver.com or  Web Buddy at http://www.conexus.com.au ]
Jump back to an earlier Web Page.	When Web browsing, and stepping from page to page, have you wanted to jump back to an earlier frame, and got sick of clicking the Back button? Why not open the next Web page in a New window (and not the currently Active window)? In the Browser, try: (a) on the File menu option, choose: New, Window (same as <Ctrl> N ); or (b) right mouse click, and choose: Open in New Window.
Security Alert and Cookies	When Web browsing, if your browser options are set to warn you of cookies, then you will at times see a window (dialogue box) with a message something like: "Security Alert ...In order to provide a more personalised browsing experience..." Don't be afraid to answer NO to this prompt, and thus disallow cookies from being stored on your PC. But there are some Web sites that require cookies to be enabled for the Web pages to display and function properly.
Unwanted Window	When Web surfing, you might inadvertantly have some "undesirable" Web site display things that you don't want to see. You can close this window, and/or stop the downloading of the Web page. Hit the <STOP> button on our browser's toolbar to stop the download. See Closing the Active Window for more information.
Browsers keep History	Web Browsers automatically keep a history and copies of things that you do. When Web surfing, a number of things are automatically saved to your hard drive (some of these things are customisable). With a little smart snooping, other people can interrogate your PC and see what you have been looking at, and which sites you have visited. Look for: Cookies, History, Recent Files, Temporary Internet Files.
Your ISP has a History	The computer servers that your ISP has that are used to give you Internet access automatically keep log files and history of the users who connect, and the Web sites visited. If you visit an "undesirable" Web site, then your ISP's computer system will have a record of it.