Browsers are used to look at the worldwide web - a collection of pages on varying topics and of varying interest.

Pages can consist of text, pictures, audio samples, videos, links to other pages and files to download. Clicking on a blue hypertext link will take you to that page, download the file, or trigger the sample or video. You may also be able to access a link from an image - rest the cursor on the link to see if it is "hot" or not.

Starting Internet Explorer

Double clicking on the Internet Explorer icon on your desktop will run the browser.

Customising Internet Explorer

Clicking on "Tools" then "Internet Options" lets you configure font settings, your cache, your Start Page upon loading and whether the browser triggers an automatic login.

Opening a URL (Uniform Resource Locator)

Accessing the "File" menu lets you choose to "Open URL/Open page" (depending on the browser and the version it is) and in here you can type the web page you want to go to direct. For instance, the Howff Homepage URL is http://www.howff.co.uk Most webpage URL's will start with the form http://www You can also access ftp (file transfer protocol) sites direct through the browser.

Useful URL's

Search Engines are a good place to start with searching for information on topics that interest you. A list of some of the available ones can be accessed by clicking the search button on this page.

Other useful URL's you might want to bookmark (make a "favourite") - see later section - include your hardware vendor, sites that interest you and other help pages.

Favourites

Bookmarks/Favourites can be used to keep the URL of your favourite page. You can even organise your bookmarks into topic folders.

In Internet Explorer you can create a list of your favourite webpages. To do this, when you are at a page that you like, click "Favourites", then "Add Favourites".

For example, to add our webpage -

The subsequent dialog box will let you select whether you just want to add the page to your favourites list or place it in a specific folder. Click "New Folder" to create this new folder.

After Clicking OK this page will now be added to the favourites list.