This document provides information on some of the advanced features of Internet Explorer 6(IE6).
You can download the installation for Internet Explorer 6 on the World Wide Web at the ITS Supported Software page.
To find out which version of IE you are running, click on the Help menu and then click on About Internet Explorer.
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In order to run Internet Explorer, you need to make sure that you computer has the minimum system requirements to run the application.
Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) has something similar to bookmarks in Netscape 6. IE6 calls these bookmarks favorites. This isn't a file, but rather, a folder that contains all of the saved links. You can add your own links to this folder by going to the menu bar and clicking on Favorites, then Add to Favorites. (You can't do this by clicking on the Favorites button on the toolbar.) This will make a link to the current page you are viewing and place it into the Favorites folder for future access.
You can backup your links by opening up the Favorites folder in c:\Documents and Settings\Username\Favorites and copying the links to a floppy disk or some other media.
To do this, navigate to the following folder: c:/Documents and Settings/username/Favorites. Here you will see all your links. There may be other folders or links to folders that have nothing to do with the Internet such as My Documents. Highlight all the links you want to back up by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking the links you want to back up. Then right click on any of the highlighted links and choose Copy. Double click on the My Computer icon. Right click on the device you want to backup your links to, for example the floppy drive, then click Paste. That will backup your selected favorites to the floppy disk.
NOTE: The file location above is for the default installation of Windows. The location may vary on your computer, depending on how you installed Windows.The username in the path above is your username on the computer.
You can change the settings for IE6 by going to the menu bar and clicking Tools then clicking on Internet Options.
Under the General tab there are many options you can adjust. To change the default web home page, type any valid web address (also called a URL) in the Address box. Next time you start IE6 this is the page that will appear.
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The history and cache can also be cleared from this window. The history is a record of all the websites you have been to. By clicking on the History button (on the IE toolbar), you can quickly view the websites that you visited today, yesterday, or last week. You can also view history by site, by most visited, or by order visited. This allows you to only type in the address once, then when typing that address again, it will try to match it with one that is in the history. This can be useful, if you don't want to put a page into Favorites, but you go to that page often. However, you should clear the history once in a while, because it will get clogged with addresses which will make it harder to get to webpages. To clear it just click on the Clear History button. Temporary Internet Files (or cache) are all the temporary files, html pages, and graphics you get when viewing a webpage. This should also be cleared regularly because it takes up space on your hard drive. To clear the cache, click on Delete Files under Temporary Internet Files. Click OK to confirm the deletion. Default location of these files is in C:\Documents and Settings\username\Temporary Internet Files. |
The Security tab allows you to alter how much control you give to the browser and how much control you want. The range of control varies from letting the browser do everything the website says (even if it's harmful) to letting you make all the decisions about what you will accept. Both of these are at the opposite ends of the spectrum and depend on your specific needs. Usually it is sufficient to leave the setting at default which is a medium security level.
The Content tab allows you to control access to certain websites. For example, you can prohibit access to websites with offensive language. To do this click Enable in the content advisor box. Enter a password so people can't change it back then setup how tolerant you want the browser to be. Write down your supervisor password and keep it in a safe place. If you forget the password, you will have to reinstall Windows to create a new one.
The Ratings window allows you to change the sensitivity of the browser. (It ranges from zero tolerance to let everything through.) By default it will filter out everything that violates any of the four category ratings at the zero tolerance level. There are four levels for each category.
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Note: The last three tabs "Connection", "Programs", and "Advanced" are for advanced features and should be used with caution.
Adobe Acrobat Reader
Adobe Acrobat Reader is a helper application that allows you to read files in PDF format that preserve the look and feel of the original document even across different platforms. A lot of Internet documents are written in PDF. This program can be obtained from the ITS Supported Software page. After you install the program just click on links that contain PDF files as usual. Acrobat Reader will start up automatically and you will be able to view the document.
Real Player
Another useful helper application is Real Player. One of the things this program allows you to do is listen to streaming audio files found at Internet radio websites. This program can be obtained from www.real.com. After installation, you can access the Real Player in two ways. First, if a website has a link to a real audio file, you can click the link and the Real Player will launch and begin playing the file. You can also start the Real Player from outside the browser by clicking on the blue balloon icon on the task bar (in the lower right of the screen, to the left of the clock).
QuickTime
QuickTime Player developed by Apple Computer allows IE to play movie files that are often found on the Internet. You can download the QuickTime Player from www.apple.com/quicktime.
Shockwave
Another useful program is Shockwave from Macromedia. This program allows you to see animations and use different pointers on webpages that use Shockwave. It can be downloaded from www.shockwave.com. After installation, when you go to a Shockwave enabled website you will see animations, hear sounds, and maybe even have a different pointer then the standard arrow and finger.
Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player, developed by Microsoft, can be downloaded from windowsupdate.microsoft.com under Product Updates. This player allows you to play most multimedia content formats on the Internet including Windows Media, Quicktime, AVI, WAV, MP3, and others.
There are hundreds of different plug-ins out there. Usually, clicking on certain links will prompt you to download a plug-in. Use caution when visiting an unknown site as that could be another way security could be breached. Download from trusted sites only.
You can search the Internet by clicking on the Search button in IE6 or by manually typing in the address of a search engine then conducting the search from the search engine's page using key words. Here are some good search engines that are available on the Web:
| Yahoo! - www.yahoo.com | Hotbot - www.hotbot.com |
| Infoseek - www.infoseek.com | Metacrawler - www.go2net.com/search.html |
| Google - www.google.com | Lycos - www.lycos.com |
A warning box saying "When you send information to the Internet, it might be possible for others to see that information. Do you want to continue?" will appear when you submit unencrypted data over the Internet (usually in a form).
"The page cannot be displayed" appears when the webpage you requested is not available, typically when the URL is misspelled. If the URL is typed correctly, the network connection could also be down or the server unavailable so you could try again later.
"The page cannot be found" appears for several reasons: URL was typed incorrectly, the page was moved, its name was changed, or the page is temporarily unavailable.
"Action canceled" appears when IE is unable to get to the requested page. It's usually best to click on the Refresh button or try again later. The Refresh button forces the browser to reload the page from the web server (not cache).
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IE6 has online help which you can access by clicking on Help on the menu bar, then Contents and Index. You can also go through the online tutorial by clicking on Help, then Online Support.
