Change Your Browser's Home Page
(Paul W. 08/02/07)

    When you open Internet Explorer or Mozilla/Firefox or whatever your Internet browser is, what webpage automatically comes up? Typically it's the webpage that your Internet provider wanted you to have (e.g. SBC-Yahoo, AOL, etc.). So besides all the latest news and pictures staring you in the face, you've also got some adds and a bunch of other stuff that maybe you could care less about. You don't have to be stuck with this if you don't want. If you want to keep it as is, this tip isn't for you. (At least not now.)
    I'm going to show you in I.E. and in Mozilla (Firefox/Netscape) how to do this. If you're using AOL's browser I suspect there is an option similar to these other browsers, but I just don't know AOL. (gave it up about 15 years ago) So here we go.
    First thing you need to do is decide what webpage you want to use for your homepage. For demonstration purposes, (and some advertising) we'll use www.gnulife.com/homepage.htm. (Right click on the link and choose to open in a separate tab or separate browser window. Then you can go back and forth between this tip and the Gnulife page. Now in Mozilla (Firefox/Netscape) click on Edit > Preferences > General (Main) and click on the "Use Current Page" button. (Depending on the version, the path to this "Use Current Page" button may be a little different. Hunt through the menu items a little bit.) In Internet Explorer click on Tools > Options > General (tab) and then click on the "Use Current" button. (I haven't experimented with I.E. 7 yet. Sorry.) Click OK and your browser's homepage has changed to what you want it.
    But let's take it one step further. What if you pick a homepage on some server and when you go to open your browser, your homepage won't come up because the server is down or getting too much traffic. Now what do you do? (It's really not that drastic since you can use the address bar to type in where you want to go. Or use your bookmarks/favorites, etc.) Here's the easy solution. Before you change your homepage per the instructions above, go to the page you want to be your homepage and save it to your hard drive. (try it with the Gnulife link above) Do a File > Save As and save it to your hard drive where you want to, and name it what you want. Once you've saved it, go to File > Open and locate the file you just saved. Open it and then follow the instructions above to make it your homepage. Now you're using a local file as your homepage so even if the server on the other side of the world is unavailable, you're still surfing away.
    There you go.

P.S. Don't forget to call Gnulife for your computing needs!