A Tour of Internet Explorer 7.0

The primary goal of this whole lesson is to take a tour of the interface.  Items that will be pointed out include changes to the Toolbar.  You will rediscover the location of the familiar browser options and glimpse some of the newer features including:

• The Home button
• Quick Tabs
• Favorites/RSS/History
• The Back/Forward buttons
• The Address Bar
• The Tools Options

In the bottom right-hand corner are your zoom settings.  You can increase or decrease the zoom to customize the browser content to the size you need.

Using Multiple Tabs

Internet Explorer 7 utilizes a new feature that didn't exist in previous versions of IE... the ability to open up multiple tabs in a single browser window.

You can open a new tab by selecting the little tab nub at the end of your existing set of tabs that are open.  You can also hit Ctrl+T as a shortcut to opening up additional tabs.

To the left of your tabs, when you have multiple tabs opened, is an option called Quick Tabs where you can quickly see all of your open sites.

If we need to make changes to our Tab Settings, we select the Tools option and then Internet Options.  On the General tab there is a section for Tabs and we select the Settings button.

Altering Tab Settings

To adjust your Tab Settings you select the Tools option and go to Internet Options.  On the General tab there is a section for Tabs and we select the Settings button.

From within the Tabbed Browsing Settings you can choose to Enable Tabbed Browsing (which is the default setting).  There are additional settings you can enable or disable including the following:

• Warn me when closing multiple tabs
• Always switch to new tabs when they are created
• Enable Quick Tabs
• Open only the first home page when Internet Explorer starts
• Open new tabs next to the current tab
• Open home page for new tabs instead of a blank page

Configuring Multiple Home Pages

open your Internet Explorer.  It's also the page that appears when you hit the Home button.  With tabbed browsing however you have the option to create more than one Home page, forming more of a Home Group.

One way to do this is to open the pages you want to set as your Home page and then selecting the down-arrow next to the Home button and you have the option 'Add or Change Home Page'.  If you select this a dialog appears asking questions so as to determine if you want to create a new home page using the page you are currently on (that is, the page you were on when you selected the 'Add or Change Home Page' option) or if you want to use all of the tabs that are open at that time.

Note:  If you go to the Tools, Internet Options, General tab you can see the Home Page settings, as well as make changes.

Subscribing to Web Feeds (a.k.a. RSS Feeds)

RSS, Real Simple Syndication, is the basis for this lesson.  In this lesson you will learn what RSS feeds are and how to subscribe to them.  You will also see how you can configure a sound to be played when an RSS feed is found.

Some pages do not have RSS web feeds.  If a page does have it you will see the icon for RSS feeds illuminate in your toolbar.  Then you can select the down-arrow to select the feed you wish to subscribe to.

To view feeds that you have subscribed to, you click the Favorites star button and then you can select Feeds.

To modify Feeds settings you go to the Tools, Internet Options and then on the Content tab you have a section for Feeds.  Choose the Settings button for your options.

Setting RSS Feed Refresh Frequency

You may wish to customize the frequency for when IE checks for updates to a web feed.  There is a default frequency that you can update for all feeds... or you can alter an individual feed to check more (or less) often.

The default schedule can be found under Tools, Internet Options and then on the Content tab you have a section for Feeds where you select Settings.  The default frequency is Every: 1 day.  You can change this by selecting the down arrow and choosing a new time.

To alter the refresh frequency for an individual feed you can open your Feeds, right-click the feed you wish to change and choose Properties.  Using the 'Update schedule' options you can use the default schedule or opt for a customized schedule that you configure here.

Working with Search Engines in IE7

This lesson shows you how to add more providers to make your search more proficient.  There is a Search Bar in top right-hand corner of Internet Explorer.  The default is to use the Live Search site.

You can change the provider by selecting the little arrow to the right of the search bar and choose 'Find More Providers'.  You'll see that there are Web Search options and Topic Search options.  You can add any of these to your options.  Then you can select the arrow to the right of the search bar and choose one of the ones you've added.

To change the default search you can select the arrow to the right of the search bar and choose 'Change Search Defaults'

Working With Your History

This lesson will discuss the History of your browsing in terms of the following:

• Finding sites you've previously visited
• Extending your history retention
• Deleting your history or specific parts of it such as:
  • Temporary Internet Files
  • Cookies
  • History
  • Form data
  • Passwords

Pop-up Blocker Settings

This lesson will show you how to enable and disable the Pop-up Blocker, as well as configure Pop-up Blocker Settings.

To turn the Pop-up Blocker on or off you select the Tools button and from the Pop-up Blocker settings you have the option to Turn Off Pop-up Blocker or conversely Turn On Pop-up Blocker.  In addition, you can see the Pop-up Blocker Settings where you can configure allowed sites, notifications to display and the filter level.

Using the Phishing Filter

Phishing is a form of Internet fraud.  A scam that is usually started with a bogus email from a known, reputable source that encourages a person to click a link that goes to a website that looks real... but isn't.  The idea is to fool a person into giving away important, private information.

The phishing filter can be used to detect if a site is real or fake.   To turn the Phishing Filter on or off you go to the Tools button and from the Phishing Filter settings you can select one of the following options:

• Check This Website
• Turn Off (or On) Automatic Website Checking
• Report This Website
• Phishing Filter Settings

Working with Add-ons

This lesson covers the following:

• What are Add-ons?
• Using the "No Add-ons" version of Internet Explorer
• Managing Add-ons

Using the Links Bar

In this lesson we will discuss the following:

• Displaying the Links Bar
• Creating buttons for the current page
• Creating buttons from a web link
• Maneuver and rename buttons.