Topic: Productivity Tips for the Savvy Surfer, Mainly IE

[thegallery]

I posted this on another forum, and though it received little response, I'm still eager to spread the word.

I have been on the internet for years, and sometimes I come across something that's a huge benefit, and I wondered why I didn't know about it long before.

So here are three tips you may find useful, (just in case you don't already know about them):

1. Control+Enter in IE: If you want to go to any ".com" website, just put the name in the address bar, say, "pc-pals", then press Control+Enter, and you'll automatically surf right to the .com site.

2. Searchy: This is my favorite tip, and a definite must for anyone who spends time searching or shopping online. There's a fellow in Germany named Lukas Wenz, and he's produced this free utility for IE that allows you to search all your favorite websites instantly from the address bar. For example, when you want to look up a book on Amazon, say "Great Expectations", you just type in: "a great expectations". It takes you right to the Amazon search results for the book. It eliminates having to surf to the site the long way, and then having to enter query in a separate dialog box.

But you can use this for anything, and you can build you own searches. "img" searches images on Google, "e" searches eBay. I even set one up for myself "ebn", that automatically searches eBay Buy It Now with the lowest prices first.

It does involve editing your registry, but Mr. Wenz also provides a utility to remove all the registry entries if you ever needed.

I'm an avid biker, so now all my favorite bike stores can be searched instantly from the address bar. Not to mention at least 20 other sites that I use: like "yp" for my local yellow pages, "f" for Froogle, and UPS for tracking UPS packages. It's endless! If you use IE you won't be disappointed.

3. Roboform: This is a commercial program many of you may be familiar with, though I only started using it this year. This program saves all the sites where you have to sign-in, from your bank to the Buzz, and allows you sign-in with just a click or two. It automatically takes you to the site log-in, fills out your name and password, and submits to take you right to your desired page. I use it for everything, form the cell phone company to the Turnpike ezpass account. It's a little weird to start, but once you get going it works great. You sign in a special password one time, then you can instantly sign in to any other place you want to go. The program is free if you have less than 10 places saved, but I already have 70!, so I paid the $30 bucks.

Roboform has a neat function that fills out forms on shopping sites and such, including credit card info, all with just a click of a button. Different users, cards or profiles can be set depending on the info you wish to use.
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Well, I hope some of these help. Please let me know your thoughts...

[Clive]

Oh I see what you mean about searchy.  It has a very comprehensive list of sites it deals with too.  I wonder if it will work for Mozilla fans too - I doubt it!

As for Roboform, I've been using it for years and couldn't do without it!  In fact, I've even been considering purchasing the full version!

[chorleydave]

Interesting read, thegallery.  However, I doubt if it will elicit very much response as most of the active members on here use either Mozilla or Firefox and I use a combination of Opera and Firefox.  In fact, I could name a few of us (myself included) who wouldn't go near Internet Explorer if we were offered money to use it.

I know that it is a little unfair to blame the browser you use for all security problems, but as I have used Opera as my main browser since the day I set up a home internet connection in 1999, and I have never had a single virus or spyware program on my computer, I can't help but wonder if I could report the same if I had  used IE for the past six years.

[sam]

In fact, I could name a few of us (myself included) who wouldn't go near Internet Explorer if we were offered money to use it.

include me in that list! on windows firefox rules, on linux mozilla rocks!