Category — technology

Internet Explorer 7 – why do we use it?

There are other ways to look at all the Internet has to offer: (Firefox, Opera etc.) without having to swear at IE7. However, IE is the browser that most people are used to, so despite the frustration of not being able to find anything and the fact that IE7 seems to assume all its users are morons, we keep using it.

Well, if you’re going to use it anyway, you may as well learn to control it. Part of having control is being able to delete your internet history; the cookies, the browser history – the stuff you don’t want your significant other, your mom or the geeks at Best Buy to find on your computer.

There are two ways to delete cookies (or your browser history):

1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Click Tools > Delete Browsing History…
3. Choose one of the options and click the corresponding delete button.

This will delete ALL of whatever option you pick. You will not have the option to pick and choose. So, if you chose to delete cookies, all cookies would be deleted. Even the ones you wanted to keep.

Or, you can delete cookies this way:

1. Click Tools > Internet Options
2. On the General tab, under Browsing history, click Settings.
3. In the Temporary Internet Files and History Settings, click View Files.

You can now choose the specific files, images and cookies you wish to delete.

If you want to delete things from your browser history, you can choose to delete everything through the Delete Browsing History… option (see the first set of instructions), or you can pick and choose:

1. Open Internet Explorer 7.
2. Click the inverted triangle  to the left of the address bar.
3. Click History.

You can now pick specific folders or pages to delete without being forced to delete everything.

Happy deleting!

As of September 9, 2008, I will be taking some geek lessons at UBC.

I’m finally putting up a website for my business – so far I have the domain name and lots of enthusiasm – and since I want to use WordPress for the site, I need some idea of how PHP works.

I’ll be taking Introduction to Programming Basics and Introduction to PHP Programming as seen here. If those go well I might take the Advanced Web Programming Using PHP course too.

When I can, I prefer to do things myself. If I can teach myself HTML and CSS, I can learn programming basics and PHP too. Even if I’m a complete dunce at these courses, I hope to at least walk away with some idea of what I’ll be paying other people to do for me.

I’m kind of excited to take some university courses – I’m interested in seeing how the old grey matter stands up against new information and what my classes will be like.

I hope it’s better than the time I was in fourth year university and taking a first year course. I know I was an obnoxious little moron in first year and I didn’t pay nearly as much attention as I should have, but I had no idea how annoying I was until I took that class.

All the new students did was talk – well, they whispered, but it was still distracting.

“Oh my god, I was soooo sick this morning. Monday nights are SO NOT the new Friday.”

“This class is so boring, if goes on any longer I might kill myself.”

Some people simply slept, which was OK by me - drooling on a $150 textbook is stupid, but at least it’s quiet. The professor for that class is legally blind and therefore has exceptionally keen hearing. He used to turn his milky eyes on the worst offenders and stare at them until the whole class was uncomfortably silent and then he would continue the lecture.

I always wanted to applaud when he did that. It was very effective. After a few classes the talkers either shut up, or dropped the course.

So, I’ll be a student again – at least for a month or two – now who wants to pay for my textbooks?

This post is dedicated to Curlywurlygurly – I have a magic button for you!

When Microsoft introduced the new Office Suite 2007, I went right out and paid full price for a copy. I opened Word with my head full of feel-good marketing stuff about a new look and ribbons. It sounded pretty and superior to the old version

I was totally flustered when I saw it for the first time.

Where the hell were the file menus? What was all that mess across the top of the screen? Why are there tabs all over the place and why don’t they make any sense? Why did Microsoft have to so brutally kick me out of my comfort zone and take away all the stuff I was familiar with?

But I’m no complainer, so I gave it a try. I typed up a blog post in there intending to copy and paste it into WordPress. I generally use a lot of keyboard shortcuts when I type, so at first everything was OK – but everytime I wanted to use something from on of the old toolbars, it wasn’t there. I wanted to change the properties on the document and I couldn’t figure out where to go. I wanted to save the document so I could possibly retrieve it later – assuming Best Buy could sort of broken bits of laptop because I was ready to drop the thing off the roof of the house.

I wanted my damn file menus back!

But then, the fog of frustration rolled back to reveal this:

This is the Office Button – it’s in the upper left corner of the Word screen. Click it to reveal this:

And there they are – all those items you miss from the old File menu.

Look under Prepare for nifty things like changing document properties and encrypting documents.

I am ashamed to say it took me several weeks to realize that Office Button was a button that did anything. I figured it was like the Internet Explorer icon that I see in the upper left of my screen as I type this. Just a little picture to let me know which program I’m using – in case I forget. A mere decoration, but not something useful.

The Office Button is the only complaint I have about Word 2007 now. I like the ribbons – no more searching through menus and drop-down lists for basic stuff; it’s all in the open. I can do what I want to do much, much faster now.

I have let go of my Word 2003 blankie and I am taking my first steps. If I were several years younger, someone would be offering me a cookie and some praise right now – I’m still open to that offer at the ripe old age of 32 – especially if you’ve got chocolate chip!