Internet Annoyances: How to Fix the Most Annoying Things about Going Online

WHERE'D MY COOL FAVORITES ICONS GO?

The Annoyance:

When I add a web site to IE's Favorites menu, a cool icon often comes along for the ride, such as the red Y! logo for Yahoo! The icons stay on my Favorites menu for a while and then suddenly disappear, never to return. How can I make them stay?

The Fix:

Every time you add a site to your Favorites list, Internet Explorer sees whether the site has defined a favicon for itself (like the red Y!). If the favicon is there, Internet Explorer stores it in your temporary Internet files cache, and it shows up on your Favorites list.

If you clean out your Internet cache, or your cache fills up to the brim, the icon is pushed out and vanishes. To keep that favicon, you must associate it permanently with the right Favorite. Here's how:

1. To find the favicon for a site, go to http://www.<website>.com/favicon.ico. For example, go to http://www.oreilly.com/favicon.ico for the O'Reilly icon. Keep in mind that not all web sites have favicons, so you won't be able to do this for every site.

2. Once you find the favicon.ico file, right-click it, choose Save Picture As, and save it on your hard disk.

3. Add the web site to your Favorites.

4. Right-click the web site in Favorites and choose Properties Change Icon.

5. Navigate to where you've stored the favicon.ico file, select it, click OK, then click OK again (Figure 5-7).

You're donethe icon will now be associated with your Favorite forever.

If you can't find a favicon at a site, but you can see the icon associated with the site in your Favorites list, it may be hiding on your hard disk in C:\Documents and Settings\<Your Name>\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files. Look for files with the .ico extension, copy them to another location, and permanently associate them with the desired Favorite.

MOVE FAVORITES AND BOOKMARKS FROM HERE TO THERE

The Annoyance:

Bookmarks, Favorites, whatever you call them, are driving me crazy! I want to be able to transfer my IE Favorites from one computer to another, make my Netscape bookmarks available in IE, and so on. Why is this so hard to do?

The Fix:

It's not as hard as you think. To copy Favorites from Internet Explorer to another computer running Internet Explorer, or to Netscape or Opera, choose File Import and Export. In the Import/Export Wizard that launches, tell IE you want to export your Favorites. Youll be able to save your entire Favorites list, or just a selected folder, to your hard disk, a removable disk, or a network drive.

To import your faves into Internet Explorer on another computer, choose File Import and Export and tell the Wizard where the exported Favorites from the first computer are saved (i.e., point to the correct CD, floppy disk, or network directory). Thats it; they'll now appear in Internet Explorer, appended to your existing list of Favorites.

To import your Favorites into Netscape, select Bookmarks Manage Bookmarks. In the Bookmark Manager that appears, choose Tools Import and navigate to where you stored the Internet Explorer Favorites. In Opera, choose Bookmarks Manage bookmarks. Then, from the Bookmark toolbar that appears, choose File Import Internet Explorer favorites, and navigate to the Favorites folders you want to import. In both cases, the imported Favorites are appended to your existing set.

You can, of course, export bookmarks from Netscape or Opera to Internet Explorer as well. In Netscape, choose Bookmarks Manage Bookmarks, and in the Bookmark Manager, choose Tools Export. Save the bookmarks file, and then use Internet Explorers Import/Export Wizard to import them. In Opera, choose Bookmarks Manage bookmarks, then choose File Export as HTML from the Bookmark toolbar that appears. Save the bookmarks file, and then use Internet Explorers Import/Export Wizard to import them.

SEARCH YOUR FAVORITES

The Annoyance:

I've got hundreds of Favorites, and trying to find the one I want now is impossible. There's absolutely no search feature in Internet Explorer at all!

The Fix:

Ah, Windows Explorer to the rescue. Fire it up, go to the Favorites folder at C:\Documents and Settings\<Your Name>\Favorites, and click the Search button on Explorer's toolbar (look for the magnifying glass). Click the "All files and folders" link, enter your search terms in either the "All or part of the file name" box or the "A word or phrase in the file" box, and click the Search button. Chances are your search phrase will be in either the name you gave the Favorite or the site's URL.

An easier, faster way to track down your Favorites is to download the freebie DzSoft Favorites Search (http://www.dzsoft.com/favseek.htm). Just click the new Favorites Search button on Internet Explorer's toolbar, and a handy vertical search window appears, splitting the screen. Type a word or letters that are part of the URL or site name, click the Find button, and the Faves are listed, lickety split. Click a link, and the site is displayed on the right. Neat.

ALPHABETIZE YOUR FAVORITES

The Annoyance:

Whenever I add a new Favorite or create a new Favorites folder in Internet Explorer, it adds it to the bottom of the list. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to organize things alphabetically. Don't tell me I have to manually alphabetize the entire list!

The Fix:

It's a mystery why Internet Explorer doesn't do this automatically, but it doesn't. (Does someone need to teach Microsoft the alphabet?) To alphabetize your Favorites, right-click a folder or a Favorite that is not within a folder, and select Sort by Name. They'll be alphabetized automatically (for the moment, anywayyou'll need to do this regularly as you add new favorites and folders to keep them in alphabetical order). Note that Favorites within folders won't be sorted alphabetically; this trick only alphabetizes the order of folders and Favorites that aren't in folders.

If you want to alphabetize Favorites within a folder, select the folder so that all of its Favorites are displayed. Then right-click any Favorite within it, and choose Sort by Name. The Favorites within that folderand only within that folderwill be alphabetized.

JUMP THROUGH YOUR FAVORITES LIST

The Annoyance:

I have a list of Favorites that's about a mile long, which means scrolling to the bottom or the top takes forever. How do I jump quickly to the top or bottom of the list?

The Fix:

You can do it, but you'll have to first display your Favorites in Internet Explorer's Favorites pane on the lefthand side of the screen (see Figure 5-8). Press Ctrl-I to make this pane appear. To jump to the bottom of the list, press Ctrl-End; to jump to the top, press Ctrl-Home.

WHY CAN'T I PRINT MY IE FAVORITES?

The Annoyance:

I'd like to print out all my Favorites, organized by folder and name, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do it. Did Microsoft really leave something this simple out of its supposedly world-class browser?

The Fix:

Yes, Microsoft did leave it out, but you can print out your Favorites if you follow this workaround. You'll first export your Favorites to an HTML file, then print that. Here's how:

1. In Internet Explorer, choose File Import and Export. The Import/Export Wizard will appear. Click the Next button.

2. In the screen that appears, choose Export Favorites and click Next.

3. If you want to print out all of your Favorites, highlight Favorites at the top of the screen, and click Next. If you only want to print out a single folder, highlight that folder, then click Next. (Alas, it's all or one; you can't print out a select number of folders.)

4. In the screen that appears, select the "Export to a File or Address" radio button, then click the Browse button and select the destination where you want your Favorites list (as an HTML file) stored. Supply a name, click Save, and then click Next.

5. Click the Finish button, then OK, then OK again. The HTML (.htm) file is now saved on your hard disk.

6. In Internet Explorer, choose File Open, and open the HTML file.

7. A list of all your Favorites (by name, organized by folder) will appear in IE. Choose File Print, and youre done!

Alas, this won't print out the actual web addresses. If you want the URLs, here's a semi-successful workaround: perform steps 1 through 6, then choose File Print, click the Options tab, check the "Print table of links box, and click the Print button. This will generate the folder/Favorites listing you got above, followed by a table that lists the Favorites' names on the left and the actual web addresses on the right. The downsides: the folder names aren't printed in the table, and really long web addresses may be truncated.

THE LINKS FOLDER: THE MOST ANNOYING FAVORITE

The Annoyance:

I like to keep my Internet Explorer Favorites list lean and clean, so I deleted the pointless Links folder by right-clicking it and choosing Delete. That did the trickat least until the next time I started Internet Explorer. Then it returned, like Dracula rising from the dead. What's the silver bullet for killing this annoying folder?

The Fix:

Put away the revolver. To remove this Folder of the Undead, exhume the Windows Registry Editor. First, exit Internet Explorer. Then select Start Run, type HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar. In the righthand window, double-click the LinksFolderName item. In the "Value data" box, delete the word "Links," and leave the box blank. Click OK and exit the Registry Editor. Restart Internet Explorer and delete the Links folder. No more rising from the grave; it'll stay deleted.

If you hate mucking around in the Registry, simply hide the Links folder. In Internet Explorer, right-click the Links folder, choose Properties, check the Hidden box, and click OK. The folder still exists; you've just made it invisible. To make it visible again, uncheck the Hidden box. You can also hide it by running Windows Explorer and going to C:\Documents and Settings\<Your Name>\Favorites. That's the location of your Favorites folder. You'll find a subfolder underneath it named Links. Right-click it, choose Properties, check the Hidden box, and click OK.

DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY?

The Annoyance:

Several days ago I visited a web site and found a piece of information I'd been looking for. But I've forgotten the informationand what's worse, I can't remember the web site where I found it! How can I retrace my steps?

The Fix:

Internet Explorer includes an easy-to-use History pane feature that lets you browse through the pages you've visited recently and, more to the point, lets you search them as well. Click the History button in Internet Explorer (look for the round clock with a green arrow moving counterclockwise), and the History pane will open on the lefthand side of the browser (see Figure 5-9).

You'll be able to go back through pages you've visited for up to the last 20 days, depending on how much memory you've devoted to your Internet cache.

To make it easier to find the site you're looking for, you can sort the pages in your History list in several ways. Click View, and then choose By Date, By Site, By Most Visited, or By Order Visited Today.

If that still doesn't help, you can search through your History pages. Click the Search button, type in a search term, and then click Search Now. A list of sites that match the term will be displayed.