Internet Explorer

I’ve already given you a Tech Tip on how to use tabbed browsing to enhance your legal nurse consulting research. I’ve also Tech Tipped on how to recover your work in your web browser in the event that you accidentally close it out. Today’s tip works in Firefox^®, Chrome^® and wonder of wonders, in Internet Explorer^® 8. If you accidentally close a tab, before you shout Holy Tech Tip Tom! Simply hold down your Control button, your Shift button and hit the T (for Tom) key. Each time you give your computer the <Ctrl><Shift>T salute it’ll open up the last tab you closed in your web browser. If you’re a Safari^® user, you can only re-open the last tab you closed, but at least it’s a simpler salute <Ctrl>z (for Ziemba).

Okay my CLNC^® amigos, armed with these Tech Tips you’ll never lose a second’s work again!

Keep on Techin’,

Tom

The Internet is an indispensable tool for Certified Legal Nurse Consultants researching their legal nurse consulting work product. Web browsers are getting better and faster than ever. No matter which browser I’m using, I like to use tabbed browsing and am always opening links in a new tab. This practice keeps me from losing my search results by following links too far forward and not being able to get back to my original search results.

One of the issues I run into (and I’m sure my CLNC^® amigos do also) is reflexively closing the browser instead of the particular tab you mean to close. Fess up, I’ve never met a nurse who hasn’t made a med error and I’ll bet I’ve never met a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant who hasn’t accidentally closed out an entire hour’s worth of research by closing the browser instead of the tab. Well curse no more my CLNC^® amigos. Here’s a way to rescue your work – if you’re willing to put up with a little inconvenience.

Firefox users have the best options, so I’ll start with you. Open Firefox, click Tools, then Options. Now click Tabs, make sure the radio button next to Warn me when closing multiple tabs is selected and then click OK to close the options. Now when you accidentally attempt to close your browser instead of the tab you’ll get the pop-up warning You are about to close X tabs. Are you sure you want to continue? You’ll also get the option to continue closing the tabs or stop and save your work. Woo-hoo!

Your second option is to do the Tools, Options thing again and this time click General. Then select the dropdown box next to When Firefox starts and select Show my windows and tabs from last time. Now when you close Firefox (accidentally or not) the next time it starts you’ll recover all the tabs and windows that you were viewing. If you select the box next to Don’t load tabs until selected, it won’t preload the tabs so your browser will open just as quickly as before and you can recover or close the tabs you don’t want. One drawback is that this option will eliminate your customized home page(s), but hey – your work’s more important right?

Chrome users don’t have the same range of options. You can simply click the little wrench in the top right hand corner of your Chrome browser, then Options, then Basics (if it’s not selected) and select the radio button next to Reopen the pages that were open last. Now, when you accidentally close your browser you simply need to reopen it to open all those tabs you had painstakingly researched and opened. The inconvenience here is that you’ll lose your customized home page and, if you constantly keep a large number of tabs open, it may slow your browser’s load time. You decide what’s more important to you.

For the last two Internet Explorer^® 8 users out there, your options are limited to simply being warned before you close multiple tabs. Click Tools, Internet Options, General, then on the Settings button in the Tabs section next to Change how webpages are displayed in tabs; make sure the radio box next to Warn me when closing multiple tabs is selected, then OK your way out. Now when you accidentally try to close out you’ll get the warning Do you want to close all tabs or the current tab? and you can choose.

Finally, Safari^® for Windows^® users also have that same option to receive a warning before closing multiple tabs. Click the gear in the top right corner of Safari. Then Click Preference and Tabs. Then select the radio button beside Confirm before closing multiple tabs or windows. Do that and you’ll get a warning telling you how many tabs you have open and the option to close Safari or not.

Now there’s no reason to accidentally close a browsing session again.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

Out of all the web browsers, Internet Explorer^® (IE) and Firefox^® lead the pack in number of users. Tech-types and cool Certified Legal Nurse Consultants play with Google^®’s Chrome^® browser and a few use Apple^®’s Safari^®. Just like opinions, everyone has one – a favorite browser that is.

I’m a Firefox fan because Internet Explorer is too riddled with security issues. I’ve toyed with Chrome and find it easy to use, stable but terribly invasive. Safari for Windows^® seems underdeveloped so I’ve given up on that one and prefer to play with the big three (Chrome, Firefox and IE8). I have downloaded the Web of Trust add-on for all three browsers to help me avoid websites with bad reputations. I recommend that you do the same to protect your legal nurse consulting business’s computer. Web browsers are prime points of entry for malware and Web of Trust can help Certified Legal Nurse Consultants avoid trouble.

But the purpose of today’s blog is how to get more out of your favorite web browser – that is if it’s IE8, Firefox 3 or Chrome. For the websites that you visit on a regular basis, you probably have them bookmarked so that you can quickly start a browsing session. Wouldn’t you like to open your top three or even five or more sites all at once? To quote Alec Baldwin’s character in It’s Complicated, “I like it” and I’m sure you will too.

Web browsers now have the ability to open many different webpages or different websites in what are called “tabs.” You can have multiple “tabs” that look like old-fashioned file folder tabs running along the top of your web browser and each tab can be a different webpage. If you use tabs when you first open your browser, it can load all the pages you want at one time. Then you simply switch back and forth between tabs.

Here’s how you do it for IE8, Firefox 3.5+ and even Chrome 5.0+:

Starting with Internet Explorer, open IE and click Tools then Internet Options. Next make sure the General tab is selected. You’ll see this screen:

Simply type in the URLs of the websites you want to open each time you start IE8 on a separate line and in the order you want them to open. Then click Apply.

Next click the Settings button under Tabs (it’s a little lower on that same screen). Make sure to check the boxes as checked in the screen shot below. Some people might want to check the box, “Warn me when closing multiple tabs.” This will alert you that you have multiple tabs open and will keep you from losing all your open tabs when you attempt to close one tab in your browser. This is a common mistake people make when first adapting to tabbed browsing.

Click OK, then on the next screen click OK again. You may need to restart your IE8 browser, but it will be worth it.

If you’re a Firefox user, it’s a little more difficult yet easier at the same time. In Firefox 3.6 (it should work with earlier versions but 3.6 is the version I’m on so I can’t tell you) you simply start Firefox, click Tools, Options and then General. In the Home Page box, type in the URLs of the websites you want to open when Firefox opens in the order you want to see them. Separate each one with the “|” character, usually found on the “\” key above the “Enter” key on your keyboard.

Next click Tabs at the top of the Options page and make sure the boxes shown below are checked:

Click OK and restart your Firefox browser. Your pages should open right up. If it’s your Facebook or another page that needs a login and password, you can store them in your browser.

If you’re one of those high-tech-tipping Certified Legal Nurse Consultants who uses anything Google because it’s cooler than anything else (except CLNC^® Apple-product users) start your Chrome browser and click the monkey-wrench-looking Tools icon, then Options. Next, on the Basics tab, click the radio button beside “Open the following pages.” Then click the Add button. You can either type in the URLs of the pages you want or select them from your history or bookmarks. When you’ve selected the one you want (or typed it in), click Add and you’re ready to add in the next URL. Click Close when done.

Safari users are out of luck – unless someone can give me a tech tip on how to enable this feature in Safari. The browser supports tabs, I’m just not sure how to make it open multiple tabs at once.

One more tip for legal nurse consultants that comes from a previous Tech Tip, set your browser (or even tweak your Google settings) to open links in a new tab and you’ll never lose your original search results again. You can also mine that Tech Tip for more browser tips.

Now my CLNC^® amigos, you’ll work smarter, not harder when you open your favorite pages all at once, you’ll save time searching through your bookmark bar for those pages. Using this Tech Tip, you can quickly scan your prime sites and then get on with your day. As a SysAdmin, I use one browser to make sure all the Vickie Milazzo Institute websites are up and running and another browser to hold my sites of interest.

Keep on Techin with Tabs!
Tom

I don’t know about your husband (or wife), but mine is a creature of habits. Some good, some bad and some just…

For all his tech-tippyness, he even has a bad tech habit and I have his personal permission to share this one with Certified Legal Nurse Consultants (Tom, I owe you one!). Here goes: any time Tom starts searching, no matter where he is on the information superhighway at the time, he’ll go straight to either Google^® or Yahoo!^® to start his search. To get there he’ll open a new tab on whichever browser he’s got open and click “Home.” On Firefox^® it’s his customized Yahoo! homepage, on Internet Explorer^® 8 it’s his customized Google homepage and I have no idea what’s on his Safari^® page. Once the customized page has loaded, he starts getting ready to search.

Now, I’ve watched him do this. He doesn’t go straight to the search box and start typing, first he’ll scan that customized page of RSS news feeds, etc. for current updates, weather alerts, checks on how the Dow is doing and then when he’s satisfied that all is well with the world, he begins searching. By this time he’s lost at least two minutes and those minutes build up over a day, a week and a year. Every minute he’s assuring all is right with the world is one he could be spending on the ironing (Just kidding – it’s actually washing the dishes!). In all fairness, he does keep me updated on what’s going on in the world – but at a cost to his efficiency.

One of the things working in the ICU as an RN taught me is economy of movement. When you’re coding or resuscitating a patient you don’t want to be taking three steps to do something you can do in one or two. Seconds count when lives are in the balance. I try to apply economy of movement to my workday to keep me focused on the big things. I could end up needing to work all day every day if I’m inefficient, and that would interfere with my vacation plans!

That’s why when I search the Internet, no matter what webpage I’m on, I go straight to the search box built into the top of my web browser. Tom converted me to Firefox and I love to search right from the browser. If I’m ready to leave the page I’m on, I’ll just type my search term in the built-in search box and “Google” away. If I want to stay on the page I’m on and am just doing some fact checking, I’ll simply click open a new blank tab (Ctrl + t) and search away still using that built-in box. Firefox allows me to select the search engine I want to use:

IE8 picks Bing^®/Live search as its default and I’d have to ask Tom how to change that so I’ve left it on Bing:

I do recommend that you customize your iGoogle^® homepage and Yahoo! homepage to add RSS feeds relevant to your legal nurse consulting business. I also recommend that you search from “inside the box” to stay efficient and free of distractions.

Keep on searching – efficiently.

Success Is Inside!

The more you use your computer in your legal nurse consulting business, the higher the chance that one of your data types will become associated with a program other than the one you want to use to open it. What I mean by this is that your songs may start opening with Windows^® Media Player instead of your trusty iTunes^®. Your legal nurse consulting reports created in Word^® might start opening in Wordpad or your photos may open with some editor you downloaded from the Web instead of Photoshop^® Elements or Microsoft^® Office Picture Manager.

In other words, you either installed a program that took over the file association for that file type or you may have uninstalled a program that is still associated with that file type. Here’s another example, you choose to use Safari^® as your default web browser but Internet Explorer^® always opens up saved webpages or links within an email. Some programs are overly intrusive and by default may take over file association. This can make a person crazy.

Now, any Certified Legal Nurse Consultant can remedy this like a CLNC^® Pro! This is for Windows XP but can be done with other versions. Simply, minimize all your programs to your Windows Desktop. Next left click on Start then Settings then Control Panel. When the Control Panel opens, look for Folder Options and double-left click it (depending upon your Control Panel view it may be under Appearance and Themes). Select the File Types tab and it will eventually populate a list of File Types in alphabetical order by their file name extension (.wpd, .wpdx, .xls).

Now, scroll down that list to the file type that is opening with the wrong program. Select or highlight the file type and left click the Change button. Select the program you want to use to open that file type. Make sure the box next to Always use the selected program to open this kind of file is selected. Now click OK then Close and you’ve just corrected that annoying issue!

The Control Panel and File Associations can be dangerous places, but any Certified Legal Nurse Consultant with a modicum of confidence (and care) can fix this file issue with alacrity. Go for it – but just be careful in there!

Keep on techin’,

Tom

One thing I know for sure about Certified Legal Nurse Consultants is that they all use different web browsers and different versions of those browsers. I like to keep up to date in my software and have blogged on the importance of updating the software on your legal nurse consulting business and home computers using automatic settings where possible. But once you’re a CLNC^® consultant out on the information superhighway doing research for an attorney-client, how do you know which websites are safe and which are insidious purveyors of malware? You don’t. Not, at least without some outside help.

My customized Firefox^® browser will often warn me of bad or suspect sites while doing a Yahoo!^® search (yes, I’m a Yahooholian versus a Googallion).

For legal nurse consultants who’d like a little more advice on which sites are possibly good or bad, you may wish to consider downloading the WOT – Safe Browsing Tool from WOT Services. Web of Trust (WOT) relies on its member community to rate websites based on the individual user’s experience. You can find the FireFox add-on as a download here and the Internet Explorer^® (version 6.0 and higher) download here. If you’re a Safari or Opera user, there’s no add-on available but there is a cool bookmarklet you can get here. Drag the link to your bookmarks in Opera/Safari (then rename it something like “WOT”) and when you’re visiting a website, you can click the WOT bookmarklet and it will display the site’s rating in a pop-up. Clicking on the bookmarklet again will close the window.

This is a cool add-on. Once you’ve installed it, register for membership in the WOT community and you too can start rating websites and helping keep the web safe for surfing.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

I’d like to begin today’s blog by giving a birthday “Shout Out” to Vickie:

Happy Birthday Vick – with what’s in the works, I know 2010 will be your (our) best year ever! Thanx for sharing it with me (I’ve got one of your favorite bottles of wine to go with your favorite dessert tonight! Woo-hoo!).

Now that the important stuff is out of the way, let’s start techin’! Many, if not all of you, are automatically updating the Windows^® operating system using the “Automatic Updates” function (or you’ve bookmarked the Windows Update webpage) for your home and legal nurse consulting business computers. That’s great for Windows but we all have a lot of other programs on our systems – many of which need updating too.

Some of the biggest offenders are those cool programs from Adobe^® that we all love. You know which ones I mean – Flash^®, Shockwave^® and even Acrobat^® – all are security risks from time to time. How do you stay up to date on these? Well, Adobe is finally taking steps to update some of its programs automatically – read this article – but not until April 13! In the meantime, my CLNC^® amigos, you’ll need to visit Adobe’s Security Center to see the list of “buggy” programs and Adobe’s recommended steps for dealing with them. It may involve determining which version of each program you have and uninstalling it or it could be as simple as downloading the newest version. In any event, you should visit this page on a regular basis. You can also sign up for security alerts here so that Adobe can tell you when there’s a new patch, etc. available.

If, like many Certified Legal Nurse Consultants, you’re using the Firefox^® web browser as an alternative to Internet Explorer^® you’ll need to keep on top of updates too. Open up your Firefox browser, left click “Tools,” then left click “Options,” then click “Advanced” and finally click the “Updates” tab. Make sure the boxes next to “Firefox” and “Installed Add-ons” are checked and close those boxes being sure to save your changes. This way you’ll be automatically notified each time Mozilla updates Firefox or one of your add-ons is updated. You should also take a minute to visit Mozilla’s Plugin Check page to be sure all your Firefox plugins are up-to-date.

I know it’s a lot of work, but you need to keep on top of your updates. They’re not going to do it by themselves (yet).

Keep on techin’,

Tom

As a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, do you use Google^® to search on a regular (or exclusive) basis? If you’re like me, you’re tired of seeing only 10 results per page. You know, scan the page, click next on the Gooooooooooogle link and then see the next 10 links, repeat – next 10, repeat – next 10, repeat – ad nauseum and if you’re as tired as I am of that basic white Google homepage that offers little in the way of excitement other than an occasional logo change, it’s time to take matters into your own hands. Open your Internet Explorer^® or Firefox^® browser and point it to Google. Next, create an account with Google. It’s quick, easy and it’s free (plus they know all about you anyway – they’re Google after all).

After you create your account, go back to Google and click on iGoogle (in the top right corner of the page). You may not need to, it may take you right to iGoogle^TM. When you get to iGoogle (you’ll know) you can select a theme from the “Create your own homepage in under 30 seconds” box. Check a few of the options in the Select Interests box. You can change them later. When you’re done click on “See your page.”

Once you do you’ll see that your new iGoogle homepage has changed considerably. There will be new content like a useless clock, perhaps weather, news from CNN or perhaps your local paper or The New York Times. Ignore these changes for now, we’ve got important work to do.

First, go to the top of your new iGoogle homepage and click on either Preferences or Search Preferences (depending on which one you see). You can then tell Google to display 100 (really 100!) search results per page. You can also tell it to open search results in a new window. This is way cool – your original 100 results remain in place and each link opens in a new window. This way, as you evaluate each result for a case you’re working on for your CLNC^® business, you don’t lose the original results and can close each page (or follow its links) as you wish. Save your preferences and go back to iGoogle.

Next, you can select your theme or change your theme. You’ll have pages and pages of customizable themes (header images and page colorations) that will change the way you look at Google forever (or at least until you change themes). Vickie loves trekking and hiking in the mountains so she selected a cool theme that reminds her of the Bhutanese Himalayas. I’ve got an electro-techno-looking theme that charges me up. Some themes are static – the same all the time. Other themes change throughout the day. (Try Pocoyó for a fun, changing theme). You can search the themes by keywords to find one you like.

The Institute has also developed a theme specific to Certified Legal Nurse Consultants. You can get the iGoogle CLNC^® theme by logging into the NACLNC^® Community. Once logged into the Community, click Member Seal and Other Downloads. Select the iGoogle CLNC^® theme to easily upload it to your iGoogle homepage.

Now that iGoogle’s looking different, your next step is to address the new content that’s been added to your homepage, courtesy of iGoogle’s Gadget APIs (you’ve learned a new tech word. Now, instead of saying “I can’t go out with you Friday, I’m washing my hair,” you can say “I’m staying in Friday to use Core JavaScript Features and Standard XMLHttpRequest class objects to customize the APIs for my iGoogle homepage.”)

The APIs allow you to drag and drop, add and delete and even resize feeds on your iGoogle homepage. To take advantage of this, the first thing to do is navigate to Vickie’s Blog and click the Subscribe to Feed link at the top left. Now, instead of subscribing by email, select the option under Subscribe Now! to read the blog with your iGoogle or My Yahoo! web-based reader. It’ll then take you back to your iGoogle homepage and should show a box listing the last four headlines. You can then grab the “Vickie’s Blog” box with a left click and drag it anywhere on your page. Use the little icons in the top right of each feed box to delete a feed from your page or to move it around your iGoogle homepage.

Now visit other blogs, news sites (NYTimes.com) or alert sites (FDA.gov) and add their feeds to your homepage. Do a Google search for medical-malpractice news and feeds or other types of cases that interest you to find a wealth of news, facts and opinions. Almost all of these information sources for your Certified Legal Nurse Consulting business can be added to your new homepage. On mine I keep the local weather, a stock market ticker, global and local (Houston Chronicle) news and legal feeds. As you learn of new, interesting feeds you can add them, deleting the feeds you no longer need.

I haven’t tried this in IE8 yet, but in my Firefox browser I have multiple tabs that open each time I start Firefox. My homepage and primary display tab hold legal feeds, my secondary is tech feeds (natch!) and the last is news and current events (like movies). Every time I open a browser, I take 2-3 seconds to scan the headlines and then get to searching. One more tip is to use both IE8 and Firefox. I’ve set IE8 to Google, and Firefox to Yahoo!^® and I’ve got different content on each browser. My ultimate search destination (legal, news or research) helps me select which browser to open.

This blog has primarily been about Google but, with the exception of themes and colorizations, you can customize Yahoo! just as easily as you can Google.

Remember, use a combination of search engines to get the best results. You’re cheating yourself out of information gathering otherwise. Customizing your homepages will put more information at your fingertips. Just make sure it’s useful.

Keep on techin’,

Tom