SURFING THE WEB

Windows and the World Wide Web

By: Dick Travis

With the advent of the World Wide Web, computer users are finding many more reasons to use windows to make their computer experiences easier, friendlier and more productive.

Why? Simply because if you are surfing the web in today’s environment, you are looking at real-time information, whether it be your Email, your favorite news or sports source, or even chatting or playing games with your friends.

Yesterday’s personal computer users used windows as well, but very little of the information was actually in real-time. You may have been updating your financial records on Quicken or writing a letter on your word processor or even playing solitaire, but neither of these tasks were interactive in the sense that surfing on the web is today.

Did you ever notice how many people complain about their computer?

Their computer never seems to do what they want it to do. The information they are working with suddenly disappears. Maybe they closed the window inadvertently. Or, they may have gone on to another task or web page using the same window, thus closing the original window. Many times you may not be thinking about how or when you want to return to that particular window.

If you really want to make your computer experiences easier, try opening as many windows as you need for any particular session. Use the taskbar at the bottom of your desktop to keep track of what windows (tasks) are open rather than trying to remember what window or application to open, close and re-open continuously. Believe me, it not only relieves your mind from the tedious tasks of opening, closing and re-opening an application, but the taskbar serves as a gentle reminder of what windows and tasks you are trying to accomplish.

Will opening lots of windows slow your computer down? No, opening lots of windows won’t slow your computer down—well, not so much that you will notice, unless you have an ancient computer.

So how many windows to you usually have open on your taskbar? Take a look. One? Two? Three? Ten?

I usually have five windows open on a quick “surf and out the door” session. On a cloudy day, when the golf course is closed and I am feeling cozy inside with my computer, I can easily have ten or fifteen windows open. Now that’s living! And that doesn’t count the “real” window next to the computer desk, my window for day-dreaming and checking out the weather outside.

Five windows open for a quick and dirty session? Yes, that would be:

1) My Starting Page on the Internet (usually Cox)
2) My Email page
3) My Financial Page (Yahoo)

4) My News Page (Drudge)

5) My Sports Page (Yahoo)

With these five windows open, I can easily find out what is going on in the world or locally, get my email and get out to the golf course in 15 minutes. Well, I could if I didn’t have to deal with spam, but that’s another column.

Why on earth would anyone want or need ten or fifteen windows open? Everyone has their own way of getting things done through the help of their computer, but my recommendation is to make your computer work for you, rather than the other way around.

As an example, here are fifteen windows that I generally have open on cloudy days:

1-5 (Same as above)

6) My home page (gateway to my favorite sites)

7) Freecell (my favorite game)

8) Dreamweaver (a program to update web pages)

9) Paint Shop Pro (a program to manipulate pictures)

10) Special Connection to a Web Client

11) Word (For writing letters or articles)
12-15) Various Web Client Pages (Computer Club, Golf Club, KOCT, etc.)

With these windows open and available, I am able to react to various scenarios during a one or two hour session and really accomplish the tasks needed for any particular day. And, of course, if I really have time to surf for something new—Google is always available right in my Internet Explorer. Now that’s cool.

One important thing to remember when you are surfing the web is to use FILE, NEW and WINDOW when you want to open a web page in a new window. Of course, whenever you use START and PROGRAMS, you can select whatever non-internet application you want and it will come up in it’s own window.

Windows and the World Wide Web will work better for you, if you take the time to keep the windows open on your taskbar. Let me know how many windows you keep open on your taskbar?

Email me at dtravis2@cox.net or call at (760) 724-4091