All of us have a prime use for the Internet. E-mail is the main use for many for communication, others use the browsers to surf far and wide, while others use it mainly for discussion in newsgroups. Whatever your use, it makes life much easier if you set your machine up to use it in the easiest fashion. As a picture is worth a thousand words I hope others may develop setup that suits them best. My own use is centred mainly around the work I do for Melb PC. Most of my time is spent using e-mail working with the Internet team, responding to users queries, specialised information from mail lists, etc. Very seldom do I spend time in general browsing, and my main use here is the searching out of information from manufacturers' Web sites. Newsgroups are normally restricted to the melbpc.* that I scan regularly but rarely post to as many other members are able to assist in answering queries. Figure 1 shows my normal desktop when I am online, and for convenience I have grouped many of my main Internet icons in the centre two columns. And note the taskbar at the bottom where I have six programs active, so that I can switch quickly between each as I need to. More about that later. Dialing At the top of the desktop are the icons for the four dial-up numbers. Why four icons or why any at all? If you just use a browser you can click on it and it will dial to the default dial-up number - easy! That's fine, but what if that number is engaged? In my own case I can choose and dial whichever line I like. It may be
that I am testing a modem under different conditions, or checking the different banks of modems. In your case
it could be to change if one line is engaged, or to use the Intranet for local access when the daily
allowance has expired. For whatever reason, it's much As e-mail is my main use, I have the Eudora mailer icon as shown on the next line. Each of us develops preferences for Internet software (mail, news, browser, etc) and after more than four years I have yet to find any other mailer that suits my way of working - simple, quick, and straightforward. Internet Explorer and Netscape The next icons below are for the two main browsers. The main one I use is Internet Explorer, but as I get many questions that relate to Netscape it is important that I have it also to try and replicate problems to answer queries. Newsgroups Although I subscribe to few news- groups and read them only once a day, the simplicity of Agent is my choice rather than the combined browser/ mailer/news reader used by most. Telnet Although Telnet is not of much use for most subscribers, except for changing passwords, it is my entry point into the system to carry out many administration tasks including adding and changing users, and many other tasks. Because I use this frequently, its icon s right at the bottom for easy access. Under the dial-up icons in the third column are some miscellaneous programs that I use frequently. ScanMail ScanMail is a very handy freeware program that enables you to view the headers in your mailbox, and delete anything you do not want to download. Members of the Internet admin team can have large files they do not want dumped on them. So if the mailer program slows down because someone has sent a large attachment it is a simple matter to delete it instead of waiting for it to download. This is an excellent program that can be configured for several mail accounts, and we recommend it to all users as a tool to control your mailbox. The next two icons are for Easymail and Outlook Express. Easymail is the free e-mail system offered by Telstra - its always nice to know what the opposition is doing! Outlook Express is there too, although used mainly for answering queries. Notepad Although Notepad is available through the Start|Accessories menu, because I am continually copying, pasting and editing text, it warrants a place on my desktop. Taskbar I normally work with the six programs shown running at the same time. From a message read in Eudora I may have to access the system through Telnet, check a URL with Internet Explorer, upload or download a file through WS_FTP, cut, copy or paste some text in Notepad, or shell out to DOS to quickly scan data files. (In my case it's 4DOS - I must be about the last of a dying breed!) Right at the end alongside the time is the icon to show that you are online. A frequently asked question is how to switch off. Easy, double-click this icon, the detail page appears, and click Disconnect. Start Up menu It makes it much easier with good housekeeping to have these menus
simple and un-cluttered. There is nothing worse than trying to find something on a strange PC where
everything is lumped into the Applications folder.
Figure 2 shows my Internet programs and, in this case, the frequently used programs I have on my desktop are tucked away at the bottom as they are seldom started from this menu. These are all the Internet programs I use. To summarise quickly from the top down:
What's missing? Everyone has their own likes and dislikes, and just because I use these does not necessarily mean they are for you. Some of these are of no use or interest unless involved in the system administration. One thing you will not find is any of the modem tuning programs. Having helped so many users reset their system after fiddling about, you will not find any of these programs here. Printing Frequently we print material to read offline or away from the computer. For this I use the shareware program Fine-Print, which allows printing of multiple pages on the one sheet of paper. It saves paper, is a lot easier to carry around, and is probably disposed of shortly afterwards. Do it my way? As I said at the beginning, everyone uses the Internet differently. This is the way I use it after much changing to best suit my way of operating. Your needs are different, but I hope some of my approaches provide some ideas and benefit to others. Reprinted from the May 1999 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia |
