II-C. Personalizing the Internet - Home Pages, Cookies and Portals

1. Home Pages

1. Your Home Page is the page that opens when you first start up your browser. It is also the one that your browser will return you to when you click on the Home button of the toolbar, when you open the View menu and choose Goto | Home Page, or when you press Alt-Home
2. When you first install your browser, it creates a destination home page. This is usually one that is set up by the browser maker or by the ISP who provided you with the software
3. To choose your OWN home page, open the Tools menu and choose Internet Options. On the General Tab of the Internet Options dialog box, there is a section titled Home Page with an Address text box. Type the URL of the page you want to have as your home page in the text box (or, having previously surfed to the page of your choice, click on the Use Current button
4. To have NO home page, click on the Use Blank button
5. To reset the browser to the home page originally chosen by the manufacturer, click on the Use Default button

2. A word about "cookies"

1. "Cookies" are small computer files that are created by the some of the sites you visit on the World Wide Web.  They contain information about such things as the date and time of your visit, the password you have chosen for the particular web site, and perhaps some information about your preferences or your default choices.; The technical term for this is "state information."
2. This information is used when you make a return visit. The site can respond with "Oh, there you are again. This is what I know about you and this is what I think you want me to do for you."
3. You can configure your browser to refuse cookies, but then you might not be able to access the site (some won’t admit you if you don’t accept their cookie)
4. You can buy software that routes cookies to RAM rather than to your hard disk cache and, thus, they are deleted when you shut down your computer. Other software allows you to edit the cookies in your system and to delete the ones you don't want
5. n general, you shouldn’t worry too much about cookies. Think of them as being there to make your life easier
6. There is, however, one exception to this rule. Under certain circumstances, cookies can be used to inform the sender of your email address which then can be sold to mass mailers. This is probably no more intrusive than when the magazines you subscribe to sell your mailing address to catalog vendors, but it is worth thinking about. For more information see "Is Online Privacy Dead"

3. Portals

1. A Portal is a web site that provides a series of "windows" or links into other portions of the web. It is typically designed to serve as a home page, a comfortable spot from which to launch your browsing
2. Characteristics that one should look for in a Portal are:
1. Personalized content
1. news
2. sports
3. weather
4. financial information
5. listing of events (sports, cultural, etc.)
6. TV and movie listings
7. address book
8. appointment calendar and reminders
9. other information
2. An opportunity to create communities of interest
3. Web-based e-mail services
4. Search capabilities
5. Chat and Message Board features
6. Games and Software
3. Some current examples of Portals are:
1. My Way (MyWay.com)
2. Yahoo (my.yahoo.com)
3. Excite (my.excite.com)
4. Lycos (my.lycos.com)
5. Infoseek (www.infoseek.com)
6. Net Center (www.netscape.com)
7. Planet Direct (www.planetdirect.com)
8. MSN Internet Start (home.microsoft.com)
9. Snap! (www.snap.com)
10. Alta Vista (my.av.com)