Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Internet – Firefox Multiple Home Pages

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Would you like to have more than one home page automatically open when you start Firefox? Here is one way to do so:

  • Open the pages you want to see in separate tabs.
  • Go to the Tools menu.
  • Select Options.
  • Click on “Use Current Pages”, in the Home Page of the General Tab.
  • Click on OK.

I use this to show tabs with a blank page, the Broward Personal Computer Association home page, and the Boca Raton Computer Society, each time I open my Portable Firefox on my thumb drive  That way I can see if there is any updated information for the user group pages and have a blank tab for anything else I want to check on.

See my July 17, 2006 post Open Browser To A Blank Page for how to set your browser to open to a blank page and the reasons I like to do that.

XP – Lost Window?

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For some reason, known only to the computer gods, every once in a while a window disappears. This tip should get it back for you.

  • Hold down the Alt key and keep tapping the Tab key until you get to the icon of the program you want.
  • Hit the Alt key and the Spacebar at the same time.
  • Press the M key and use the arrow keys to position the window to the right place and the Esc key when it is where you want.
  • Drag on the window edges to resize it as you like. (Caution: Do not use the Maximize button for this.)

Now the next time you open the window it should work correctly.

Actually, there are no computer gods of course, at least to my knowledge, somehow or other we must have inadvertently dragged the window beyond the accessible area of the screen. This doesn’t happen often thankfully but can be really frustrating when it does happen.

I have only used this myself in both XP Home and XP Pro but, I believe it works the same in older versions also.

Internet – Open Browser To A Blank Page

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To set your browser to open to a blank page:

In Internet Explorer:

  • From the menu bar click on Tools then Internet Options.
  • In General Tab / Home Page / Address type “about:blank” (without the quote marks).
  • Click on Apply.
  • Click on OK.

In Firefox:

  • From the menu bar click on Tools then Options.
  • In General / Home Page / Location(s)type “about:blank” (without the quote marks).
  • Click on OK.

In other browsers there should be a similar method, though I have not tried in any others.

I set both Internet Explorer and Firefox to open to a blank page on the computers I use. My Portable Firefox on my thumb drives also is set to open to a blank page.

My reasoning for this is that many times at work the server is down, yet the browser, in this case Internet Explorer, still goes and searches and then comes back with an error message. I find this waiting very irritating, especially as I am usually wanting to go somewhere else anyway.

Another advantage of using a blank page as the default is that a browser hijacking is immediately noticeable and can be taken care of right away.

I know this is a day early but, I have a bunch of meetings tomorrow at work, as well as the monthly BPCA SIG and General meetings.