Lost in (cyber)space? Use your browser's "Back" button to retrace your steps.

Believe it or not, a browser really does have a lot in common with Superman. It even has its own form of x-ray vision. It can help speed messages around the world in seconds, hook into the power of millions of users, and use its "vision" to see the work that went into creating a webpage.

Your browser is a strong tool for navigating the immense World Wide Web. Let's look at some of its best features.

Toolbars

Get Moving: The Navigation Bar

Different browsers use different names for buttons that do the same thing. The button called "Reload" in Netscape performs the same function as Internet Explorer's "Refresh" button. IE's "Favorites" button is essentially the same as Netscape's "Bookmarks" button.



• Home — When you launch your browser, it first takes you to your homepage. You may return to your homepage at any time by clicking on the "Home" button (usually a picture of a house) in the button bar. Many people use Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com) as their homepage. Why? It's reliable, loads quickly, and has a search engine, news, sports, and links to useful Internet tools. But you can choose whatever page you like as a homepage: your local newspaper, a Shakespearean insult generator ("Thou wayward boil-brained giglet!"), a daily wrestling cartoon, "This Day in Greco-Roman Culinary History," or your own work on the Web.

  TRY IT: Customize Your Home Page Navigate to the page you want to use. Find Options, Customize, or Preferences, in your browser's menu bar (the menu bar is the one with File, Edit, and so on). Click on the "use current page" button. Change your home page as often as you wish.

• Back — Clicking on this button takes you to the page you were visiting prior to the current one. Hold down (or right-click) the "Back" button and you'll see all the steps you took to get where you are.

• Forward — Once you've retraced your steps with the Back button, the "Forward" button moves you ahead to where you were.

• Stop — If a page is taking forever to load, stop loading it by clicking on the "Stop" button. If you do hit the "Stop" button, some pieces of the page may be missing, but you'll still have a good idea of what's on the page. If you like what you see and want to check out the whole page, simply click on the "Reload" button.

• Reload or Refresh — This reloads the page open. That is, it connects to the computer on which the page is stored (known as a server) and tries to retrieve the page again. This button is useful if you stopped a slow page and decide you want to see it all. You might also try "Reload" if the server was busy when you tried to load the page the first time.

  Practice browsing a website with frames. You may even learn a little something about chess!

  After you have visited a webpage once, a copy of that page is stored on your computer in a place called the cache (pronounced "cash"). When you visit that page again, your browser simply opens the page from the cache instead of requesting it from the server. This saves time, but if the page contains time-sensitive data, then you will need the most up-to-date version of that page.

  Clicking on the "Reload" button tells your computer to retrieve the page from the server that is hosting it rather than from your cache. (Note: Sometimes you have to hold down the shift key while hitting the "Reload" button.)

• Print — Clicking on this button prints the page you are currently viewing, but only if you have a printer hooked up to your computer!

Today's Special: What's on the Menu Bar?

• New — Located in the "File" menu, this creates a new browser window allowing you to keep more than one window open simultaneously. In other words, you can visit two or more pages at the same time! Once you finish with a new window and close it, your previous browser window is just where you left off. This function is pretty useful to avoid getting lost online.

• Page Source — For wanna-be Web creators, this function shows you exactly the Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) code that was used to produce the page you are currently viewing. It shows comments and page information not visible by browsing the page. If you study and understand what's there, you are on the road to producing online material.

  TRY IT: Add a Bookmark or FavoritePick a site you like. Click the Bookmarks/Favorites button to find the Add Bookmark/Favorite option. Do it. Organize Bookmarks or FavoritesIn the Netscape Bookmarks pull-down you will see an Edit option. In Internet Explorer it's called Organize Favorites. Here you can create folders to organize the multitude of bookmarks you accumulate. And don't forget, when you don't need that link anymore, delete it.

• Bookmarks or Favorites — These are the addresses of websites you want to store so you can revisit them later. You can organize them in folders for easier access. You can also very quickly assemble so many bookmarks that you are overwhelmed. Try to have some strategy for organizing your bookmarks so that using them helps you with your travels on the Web.

Your browser makes it possible for you to surf the coolest spots on the Web!

The tools are there for you to customize your browser to the hilt. The more you develop your power-surfing skills, the more important these customization features will become.

Once you get to know these tools and learn their many uses, you'll be writing e-mail, reading the latest news, listening to your favorite band, printing out pictures of your cyber-sweetie, buying a new book for Mom — all at the same time!

Exploring all the tools available. It will make you a better, more efficient Internet user in no time.

Surf's up!

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