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Click on the links below:
Broadband
Dial-up
Wikipedia
Moving Home?
Who Is?
Enlarging the Text on Web Pages
Setting up a Website
On-line Maps
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Wikipedia
www.wikipedia.org is now bigger than Encylopaedia Britannica and is reported to be more accurate.
It is created and edited by its users - you can change or add to any page (but if what you do is wrong then it will quickly be changed or deleted by other users or the editors).
I find that because each item is written by real enthusiasts they tend to go over the top, go into too much detail and are excessively pedantic.
But you can usually find what you are looking for!
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Moving Home?
Don’t forget to arrange to transfer your internet connection.
If you have a pay-as-you-go dial-up connection then you probably will not need to do anything. They usually work from any phone number.
Most dial-up anytime packages check the number that you are calling from, so unless you are able to take your old phone number with you, you will need to inform your Internet Service Provider (ISP).
Broadband users will always need to inform their ISP and there may well be several days to wait between loosing the connection at your old home and establishing it at the new one. This might be the perfect opportunity to change your broadband supplier if you were considering it.
Those with cable broadband will also have to arrange for the connection to be transferred some time in advance. They may even find that they cannot get digital cable in their new area (we can’t get it here, but it is available in adjoining areas of the city, only a few streets away).
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Who Is?
Want to know who is the registered owner of a web site name?
Go to www.who.is and type in the address of the web site.
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Enlarging the Text on Web Pages
A lot of my customers are “senior surfers” and would like to enlarge the text on web pages. They try to do this in Internet Explorer by left clicking View, then Text Size then either Larger or Largest.
But there are many web sites that specify the exact text size of most sections of the site and changing to Larger or Largest has little or no effect. A good example is http://news.bbc.co.uk The sites do this to maintain the layout exactly as they designed it.
But you can override the site designers and get the text larger (but the layout might become a little untidy). You do it by left clicking Tools, then Internet Options. Select the General tab and then left click the Accessibility button in the bottom right hand corner. You then need to select the third option - “Ignore font sizes specified on Web pages” and then OK and OK again.
Now the View, Text Size options will affect all the text. (But all text will be the same size - headings will be the same size as body text)
You may even find that the Medium setting is fine, now that it applies to all the text.
If you use Firefox, the View, Text Size options are different (Increase, Normal, Decrease) and work as you would expect and want them to - they change the size of all text, but in proportion. Again, because you have overridden the careful design, sometimes the layout suffers.
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Setting up a Website
If you have an account with an Internet Service Provider then they give you a certain amount of "free" webspace in which you can build a website.
But: the website address will not be a nice one, (something like: http://homepages.myisp.co.uk/yourusername
Not exactly memorable! And if your site attracts a lot of traffic then your ISP will probably start charging you extra (it's in their terms and conditions, but who reads them?)
I just use mine for trying things out.
So if you want a better address you have to buy one - mine cost £3.99 plus VAT (=£4.69) for 2 years.
But you can obviously only buy the names that haven't already been taken.
If you buy a name you can set it up to be redirected to use the free webspace from your ISP, but the search engines (like Google and Yahoo) don't like these "redirects" so your site will never get found.
To get round that one you need to use a webhosting company to host your website. I use a company called 1&1 who charge me £3.99 plus VAT (=£4.69) per month, payable every 6 months in advance (=£28.13).
Having got your site name and a company to host it, you have then got to build it and maintain it!
Theoretically it is possible to build a website using the text editor program (Notepad) that all PCs come with. But to do that you need to learn HTML (the language of the net). That's not as hard as it sounds. Anyone can learn enough to build a simple website in an hour. But it will be simple!
Or you can buy a Web Publisher program that does the coding work for you and lets you create pages in a "what you see is what you get" environment. The best of these is Dreamweaver. But it costs about £300. I use NetObjects Fusion which costs about £100. Others are Microsoft Frontpage (£75) or NVU (free!). But all these programs take a lot of learning before you can build "Professional" looking websites. And some of them have annoying quirks that you have to live with.
The easy alternative is to use a proper website designing and building company. I have no idea what they charge.
Other things you need to consider are:
Is your site going to have to be updated/changed/added to regularly? Who is going to do that? And how?
Do you want to sell things directly from your site - that creates a whole load of new problems with orders, acknowledgments, stock, payments etc.
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On-line Maps
Last year (2006) everyone was talking about Google Earth. I even know of some people who got a new PC partly because they wanted to play with it!
Well Google have now come up with Google Maps - and not only can you do the normal mapping type things but you can also switch between maps and aerial photographs. And the aerial photographs are the same ones as used by Google Earth.
So if you were slightly annoyed by the Google Earth pictures being “out of focus” away from the centre of the screen then you can get the whole picture in focus by going to the same spot in Google Maps.
In addition you can find places and addresses using place names or postcodes and you can get it to work out routes for you just like AutoRoute does. But this is free!
Because Google Maps is just another web page you don’t need to buy a more powerful PC like my friends did! OK you won’t be able to do the flying and zooming in from outer space bit, but you will be able to scroll the maps in almost the same way as Google Earth. Anyone that can view a web page can use Google Maps.
But Microsoft are not to be outdone - if you go to http://maps.live.com/ you will find their answer to Google Maps - Live Search.
And its even better! You can get aerial photographs from several different directions. Hours of fun!
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