WWW TIPS

Automatic page loading.

When I boot up my computer and connect to the 'net the first thing I do, in common with most people, is to collect my email. My email software automatically downloads and filters my messages for me, leaving me some time to think about what I supposed to be doing with the rest of the day.

However, the second thing I do is to go and check out a couple of websites - and at the start of each day there's about five, the same five every day, that I'll want to check out. Maybe you find yourself doing the same? There's a few places which deserve a regular visit for example:

Your News service	Eg: BBC news, Yahoo news, CNN...
Your Auctions	Eg: eBay, Yahoo Auctions...
Your online TV guide	Eg: Teletext.co.uk...

Apart from these there might well be a few business or leisure related sites that you like to keep an eye on. Perhaps you're lucky enough to have a few stocks and want to check out your portfolio, maybe you just want to catch up on the endless Britney-related gossip!

Your Business	Eg: wisdomresearch.com
Your Stocks	Eg: stocks.com
Your hobbies	Eg: Insert your hobby here!

If this sounds familiar then you'll probably be finding yourself each day searching your bookmarks/favorites lists for the same old sites, and while you might think this no hardship, it's not too difficult to set up a single page which will load them all up automatically for you with just a single mouse click. Select this link for a demonstration!

Here's how to do it (for Windows based systems anyhow).

STEP 1

Highlight all the following text, (hold the left button and move the mouse down over it - all!).

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Auto Launch</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" ALINK="#0000FF"
VLINK="#0000FF" TEXT="#F0F0FF" ONLOAD='

//Insert your target sites after this message.
//Each address must be within double quotes,
//and be followed by a new number, also in double quotes.

msg=window.open("http://dailynews.yahoo.com","1")
msg=window.open("http://news.bbc.co.uk","2")
msg=window.open("http://www.teletext.co.uk","3")
msg=window.open("http://www.ebay.co.uk","4")

window.location="http://www.google.com"
'>
<H1>AUTO-LOADING...</H1>
</BODY>
</HTML>

Next, select COPY from the EDIT menu of your browser.

STEP 2

Start up 'Notepad'. You can do this from the start menu: Programs:Accessories:Notepad, or simply by selecting 'Run' from the start menu and typing in "notepad" then ENTER.

Select 'Paste' from the edit menu, and the above text from this page should be transfered to notepad. Now all you have to do is to save the file to your desktop:

Select SAVE-AS from the FILE menu, enter c:\windows\desktop\auto.htm as the file name and select the "all files" type from the drop down menu (so the file retains it's .HTM extension rather than the useless .HTM.TXT one which windows will append otherwise).

STEP 3

Test your new page by clicking on it on your desktop when you are connected to the 'net. Hopefully, four new windows will appear - and the autoload page itself will change into Google.com the search engine.

Once you have your autoload page working, start up Notepad and load the auto page into notepad again, (FILE:OPEN "c:\windows\desktop\auto.htm"). Now you can replace the pages listed with URLs to your own favorite sites.

These might be more specific - ie your eBay link could take you to the 'My Ebay' part of the site - ie directly to the page that you want to see each day. Remember to select SAVE from the FILE menu to store your changes.

  Eg: msg=window.open("http://www.yahoo.co.uk","4")

  might become:

  msg=window.open("http://www.lycos.com","4").

Remember that you can add as many windows as you like, as long as you make sure that the target site opens in a newly numbered window.

Hope you find this as useful as I do!

A page from James David Chapman's website. Located at: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jchap/ Site mirrored here at: http://www.j.chap.btinternet.co.uk
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