March Tutor

Internet Explorer ’s Channels ●

explore
your channels
Looking for lively and informative Web content? There are tools in Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 that
give you quick access to your favourite sites, bring selected Web content directly to your desktop and make
offline viewing more efficient. Internet Explorer 4.0’s Web Channels and Web Site Subscriptions, which
make all this possible, have been combined in IE 5 to lessen confusion and expand functionality.

n Internet channel is really just a changes as they occur or select down- SETTING UP CHANNELS

A Web site, but most often it’s a

Web site with changing con-
tent—s uch as news, sports ,
weather, finance and entertainment—that
you choose to view regularly. There are
several ways to use a channel. You can
add a channel icon to the
desktop Channel Bar (Fig-
ure 1), use the channel as a
screen saver (if supported
by the Web site), select it as
an Active Desktop window
for continuous display of
loading for off-line viewing.
Although you can configure any Web site
to be used as a channel, you’ll find the
richest experience with sites designed
specifically for this purpose. Such sites are
more likely to support the screen saver
function, have Active Desktop components
to fit the latest information in a small win-
dow and are frequently updated. It takes a
few minutes to select and configure chan-
nels, but a small investment in time up
front pays off in convenient on-going in-
formation access.
If a Channel Bar doesn’t show on your
desktop and you are running Internet Ex-
plorer 4.0 or later, right click on the Win-
dows desktop, choose Properties, click on
the Web tab, check the View my Active
Desktop as a Web Page box, check Internet
Explorer Channel Bar and click on Apply
(see Figure 2).
A good first step in using channels is to ex-
periment with Microsoft’s pre-configured
selections on the desktop Channel Bar. The
first time you select a given channel, an in-
troductory screen displays the type of con-

You can activate the Channel Bar via the

2 Display Properties window.

3
Disney’s
introducto-
ry channel
page fea-
tures a fa-
mous
mouse.

The standard Internet

1 Explorer 5.0 desktop If you want a profession- The media-rich Chan-
Channel Bar includes pre- 4 al screen saver with au- 5 nel Guide is avail-
selected channel icons and topic tomatically updated con- able from the Links
categories with further choices. tent, here’s your chance. menu or by typing its URL.

84 March 2000 www.DITnet .co.ae ■ www.pcmag -mideast.com

 Tutor March

● Internet Explorer ’s Channels

tent and style you should expect from the
channel (Figure 3). You are also presented
with a choice to add the channel to your Ac-
tive Desktop.
ACTIVATING A CHANNEL FROM THE CHANNEL
BAR
When you choose to activate a channel,
you next decide whether to have its content
available while you’re off-line. If you do
want off-line Web page storage, think care-
fully before choosing to have linked pages
stored as well—extra pages can quickly use
up hard disk space.
Next select the synchronisation schedule
you prefer, choosing from manually syn-
chronising via the Internet Explorer Tools
menu, creating your own preferred sched-
ule or accepting the default schedule for
the specific channel.
The final step in the channel setup process
is to choose whether to use the channel as
a desktop screen saver (Figure 4). As men-
tioned previously, not all channels are able
to support this feature.
Once you’ve activated the pre-selected
channels you want to keep from the Chan-
nel Bar, it’s a good idea to delete those you
don’t want. This will ensure that you’ll have
more room for your own selections.
ADDING CHANNELS
There are two primary sources of channels.
The Microsoft Channel Guide (Figure 5) has
hundreds of pre-selected sites, often with
multimedia content. You can also add any
active Web site from your Internet Explor-
er Favorites to your channel list.
To access the Microsoft Channel Guide,
click on it from the Internet Explorer Links
menu. If the Links toolbar isn’t displayed,
click View | Toolbars | Links to toggle the
Links menu heading. On the Links toolbar,
click Channel Guide. You can also access the
Channel Guide by entering http://win-
dowsmedia.microsoft.com in the Internet
Explorer address bar.
With the Channel Guide in view, you can
peruse current headlines and select the sites
that generated them as channels, or you
can search the category listings. With a few
clicks, you can choose from sites that feature
live surgery, live NASA video feeds, rowing
clubs, financial news, entertainment reports
and even Web cams placed in interesting lo-
cations around the world. When you find a
site you want to add to your channel selec-
tions, right click on the Web page and select
Add to Favorites. When the Add Favorite
window pops up (Figure 6), click the Cre-
ate In button if the Create In window isn’t
open and then click the Channels folder on
the displayed menu. When you click OK, the
channel has been added.
ADDING A CHANNEL TO THE CHANNEL BAR
After you’ve added a new channel to your
list, you can access it by pressing the Fa-
vorites toolbar button in Internet Explorer
to open a frame on the left side of the screen.
Your new channel should appear in the
channel folder. To add a new channel to the
desktop Channel Bar, click and drag the
channel icon to the bar, positioning it where
you want it. You can scroll the Channel Bar
to reveal icons that don’t fit, but keeping your
most commonly accessed channels in view
is most convenient.
CONVERTING A WEB SITE FAVOURITE TO A
CHANNEL
If you have Web sites listed as Favorites that
you access often for content updates, those
are good candidates to convert to Chan-
nels. Elevating a Web site Favorite to a Chan-
nel is easy, but in doing so, you’ll remove
it from your Favorites list. You’ll have to ac-
cess the site via the Channel menu or else
re-assign it as a Favorite.
To designate a Favorite Web site as a Chan-
nel, click on the Favorites menu item on
the top line of the Internet Explorer screen
(not the Favorites icon on the Standard But-
tons toolbar). Select Organize Favorites (Fig-
ure 7). Then select the desired Favorite site,
click on Move to Folder and finally, click on
the Channels folder. At that point, the Web
site will no longer be on your Favorites list
but will be among the listed channels.
CONFIGURE A CHANNEL AS AN ACTIVE
DESKTOP WINDOW
If you have a special channel that you want
live at all times, consider adding it as an Ac-
tive Desktop item. An Active Desktop win-
dow is a dedicated window that displays part
or all of a channel’s content. You can size ac-
tive windows to see just the information
you want, such as breaking news, financial
market updates, sports scores and current
weather reports (Figure 8).
To select a channel as an active window,
right click on your desktop, choose Prop-
erties from the context menu, then click on
the Web tab. Be sure that View my Active
Desktop as a Web Page is checked. Click the
New button and then click No so you won’t
go to the Microsoft Active Desktop gallery
(although you might want to check that out
as well).
After you click No, select the Browse but-
ton in the New Active Desktop Item window
and click on the Channels folder. In that
folder, select the desired channel and click
on Open, then choose OK. At this point
you can add a password, if desired, or de-
termine other settings similar to those avail-
able when selecting channels. When you fin-
ish making your selection, the new Active
Desktop window synchronises with the In-
ternet for updated content and then dis-
plays the content in a re-sizable window
on your desktop. Turning one or two im-
portant channels into Active Desktop win-
dows is a great way to stay current.

Active Desktop windows are

part of your wallpaper. They 8
lack window title bars and re-
main on-screen when you minimise all
windows. This example shows live
weather conditions.

Use The Orga-

6 the nize Fa- 7
Add vorites
Favorites wizard makes it
menu for new easy to convert Fa-
channels. vorites to channels.

www.DITnet .co.ae ■ www.pcmag -mideast.com March 2000 85