by Jim Breen
from the September 2003 Newsletter

Actrix has many customers who are using Macintosh systems and some information and tips on how these customers can get the most out of their internet experience and be able identify and rectify common problems should be useful.

Last month Jim Breen dealt with E-mail Settings. This month he provides the last in the series and wraps up with Macintosh browser tips. - Ed.

Browser Tips

Toolbars

If you are missing any toolbars go to View menu and select Show in NS and tick all the tool bars or View in IE and you might find something that was not showing.

Images

If you have a slow connection and you are not concerned about images loading on a particular site, then turning images off will load cause the pages to load faster.
Internet Explorer - Go to Edit/preferences/Web content and untick show pictures.
Netscape 4.xx - Edit/Preferences/Advanced untick automatically load images.
Netscape 7 - Edit preferences/Privacy Security/Images

Find a Word

If you are trying to find a particular word or phrase on a web page, remember you can search for it by going to Edit and then Find on the menu at the top of your display. Type the word you are looking for in the box and click on the Find button.

Clearing Cache

Your cache consists of all the images and files your computer has visited recently on the Internet. To clear your History and Cache:

Internet Explorer - Edit/preferences/Advanced
Netscape 4.xx - Edit/Preferences/Advanced/Cache
Netscape 7 - Clear Cache. Edit/preferences/Advanced/Cache
Netscape 7 - Clear History. Edit /Preferences/Navigator/History.

Text Size

To increase or decrease the text size on a web page.
Internet Explorer - View/Text Zoom
Netscape 4.xx - View/increase or decrease text size
Netscape 7 - View/Text zoom

Compact the database

You should occasionally compact and optimise your e-mail message database. It can grow to huge proportions, because "deleted" files are not fully erased from the hard drive, even after you empty the "deleted items folder." They are partially still there, slowing down OE and taking up space on your hard drive (particularly the large messages with attachments.

Once you have archived and/or deleted many messages you can compact and optimise the files in each identity by holding down the option key while starting OE5. Keep the option key depressed until you see this window:

Select "YES" and OE5 will compact and optimise the files in the identity folder. This may take some time, so be patient.

Caution, If you select NO it will bring up another window asking if you want to do a complex rebuild of the database. If you then select YES, this rebuild will cause some mail and addresses to be lost.

Switch Identity

You can set up a separate identity in OE for another user or if you want to keep mail accounts each with their own mail folders. Go to File /Switch Identity.

This allows you to set up another identity or to switch between them if more then one is already set up.