Internet Course Guide

Lesson 3: Selecting a Home Page and Using Explorer's Help

Once you connect and then open your browser, you automatically go to your browser's home page. Your browser's home page is the first Web page that appears in your browser's window. You don't have to be content with the home page now appearing first in your Internet Explorer's window. You can change it to any page that you want. Here's how.

Making the change

Using Explorer's menu, click on Tools/Internet Options. You should see the dialogue box shown below called Internet Options. This Internet Options graphic is the dialogue box that opened up on a computer having Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com) as the home page. On your computer, you probably have a different home page right now -- a home page that may have been selected by the company that sold you the computer or by another student previously using the computer you are now working on. But whatever your current home page, you can change it to fit your needs.

Explorer's Internet Options window where the Home Page is selected.

Selecting the home page for this course

Now close the above Internet Options dialogue box showing your current home page. Then go to the following site that you will use as your new home page for the rest of this course:

www.gordonrichard.com/internet

Once at this Internet Course Guide site, again open the Internet Options dialogue box by clicking Tools/Internet Options.
Then click on the button Use Current.
Finally, click on the OK button at the bottom of the Internet Options dialogue box.

Following these steps will make this Internet Course Guide your home page. Every time you want to return to it, just click on the Home button on Internet Explorer's toolbar.

Using Explorer's Help

Following these steps, use Explorer's Help to learn how to make a site your home page.

Assuming you are working with Explorer version 5 or later, use the Help available from your Internet Explorer toolbar.
Click on Contents & Index, and then type in home page

Part of the Explorer Help window.

Now double click on home page in the blue bar.
You should now see a Topics Found window with "To change your home page" selected.

Help windows showing how to change home page selected.

Click on the Display button and you will see Microsoft's explanation of how to change your home page.

You know now not only how to use Help to figure out how to change your home page. Even more importantly, you know how to use Help's index to get explanations on many other browser topics.

Resources

Here you will find additional information related to this lesson at these Internet sites. Other sources for all the lessons are found in the Links page.

Microsoft shows how to set-up Explorer's Home Page.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/252464/en-us
Changing your Netscape Navigator Home Page
http://wp.netscape.com/browsers/using/newusers/basics/homepage.html

Question Bank

Answer the Question Bank questions to make sure you have learned this lesson. Remember that your final exam will be made up of questions selected from this Question Bank.

Exercises

Be sure to do the Exercises for each lesson.
For your next lesson, go to Lesson 4: Deleting Favorites