“Of Mice and Megabytes Supplement”

CUSTOMIZED BROWSER HOME PAGE
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To download “myhomepage.html” for customization, place your cursor over this icon . Then, for Internet Explorer (I.E.) users, RIGHT click, and select “Save Target As…” For Netscape users, RIGHT click, then select “Save Link Target As…” Mac users will need to control-click, then choose “Save link to disk.”

If you want a preview this “ready-to-modify” home page, then left click on the above icon.

How would you like a do-it-yourself, customized browser home page? Don’t worry. I’ll provide a basic template you modify yourself. So, if you’re feeling adventurous, even remotely so, here’s the scoop:

1) Download the home page template I’ve created, “myhomepage.html,” by following the instructions located on the top of this page. Download it and, more importantly, remember its location. (Detailed downloading instructions are available by clicking here.) If you’d like to preview the file first, simply left click the icon.

2) Using a text editor such as Windows’ Notepad or TextEdit on the Mac, open the file “myhomepage.html”. You can optionally use Microsoft Word to edit this file, but Word and some HTML editors add needless code making it difficult to edit. In the end, they turn this simple file into a complex one.

3) Don’t be intimidated by the file’s contents. You needn’t worry about most of the information. Scroll down to the bottom half of the file and find the line that reads <!-- selection #1 -->. The line below that one is the important one:

<a href="http://www.yahoo.com">Yahoo!</a>

For our purposes, you only need to notice that this line contains a Web address (http://www.yahoo.com) and the site’s name (Yahoo!). By editing these two snippets of information, you can customize this file to your own whims. Remember these tips, however: A) Keep intact all the open and close brackets (<>); B) The site’s address must be encapsulated in parenthesis; C) It must contain the preface tag “http://”; D) Like all other Web addresses, it cannot contain any spaces, and E) Spaces are allowed, however, in the site’s name. See “selection #8” for further sampling.

4) Edit as many of the menu choices as you’d like. If you need more than the eight I’ve provided, copy, paste, then edit the entire block of text starting with the “<!-- selection ..” and ending with “... end of -->.”

5) Save the file, making sure it still maintains the .html-naming format (i.e., myhomepage.html. Not myhomepage.txt or myhomepage.html.txt).

6) Using your file manager, locate then double click the file name to have it displayed in your browser. Do the following to make this file your browser’s home page: For I.E. users, click “Tools|Internet Options.” Click the “General tab,” then click the button “Use Current” found in the “Home Page” section. For Netscape users, click “Edit|Preferences|Navigator,” then “Use Current” in the “Home Page” section. For Mac users, click “Preferences” in I.E. Then, clicking Home on your browser will display your personalized home page.

Re-printed from the Rafu Shimpo, March 2003. Copyright©2003 Rafu Shimpo. All rights reserved.