This article is from the June 2002 Issue of Update.

How can I stop the World's Biggest Casino from opening up when doing a web search?

Unwanted pop-up boxes are one of the most annoying aspects of browsing the internet, and even some very respectable sites will use them -many search engines provide a pop-up link to the casino site mentioned. What's just as annoying are the 'under' pops, which you only see when you close the browser, and they're sat underneath like cockroaches. Horrible things! Fortunately, you can get rid of them very simply by using a utility often referred to as a 'popup killer'. You can find these by doing a search using your favourite search engine for 'popup killer' or 'pop up killer'. A friend of mine, Karen Blakeman (www.rba.co.uk) recommends one called Webwasher (www.webwasher.com/). She says 'It is free for personal, non-commercial use. As well as zapping pop-ups, you can set it to kill animations, block scripts that hi-jack your browser status bar, block webbugs and cookies. It is also a pretty good advertisement blocker.' If you do want to see a pop-up (such as a help screen) you can temporarily disable it by clicking on it from the system tray.

How can library users using their home PC get a firewall?

A firewall is a utility that can help to protect your security when you're on the internet. It can guard against people attacking your computer with malicious intent, and it can alert you to attempted unauthorised use by others online. The programme that I use is called Zone Alarm and a free version for personal, non-commercial use can be downloaded from www.zonelabs.com/ It's simple to install and use and provides you with peace of mind when you're connected to the internet. However, it's not a virus checking program - you'll still need have good anti-virus software installed on your machine.

I often cut and paste from a web page into Word. At one site I found that it didn't seem to work. Can you tell me why?

I went to the website referred to and tried this myself. Sure enough, there was nothing on the page. However, on closer inspection my cursor had jumped a few lines, just as though the text had been copied. I then realised what had happened. The colour of the text on the page that I'd pasted was white - so the copied text was there, just invisible. I highlighted the text and changed the font colour in Word (the icon to do this is a blue 'A' underlined) back to black, and my text appeared as if by magic.

Site of the month

I've just finished my latest book for Facet Publishing, called Getting and Staying Noticed on the Web (out in July or August), so my site of the month is one that I found interesting when I was writing the book. You know how annoying it is when you go to a page, only to be met by the dreaded 404 error message, indicating that the page no longer exists? Well, you can customise this message yourself to point people to another page on your site, or redirect the browser to your home page for example. It's quick and easy to do and the page (www.plinko.net/404/custom.asp) shows you exactly how to do it.

Phil Bradley is an internet consultant, trainer, web designer and author. Visit www.philb.com for free information on internet introductions, search engine articles, web design tips and a host of other free information. Now out: 2nd edition of The Advanced Internet Searcher's Handbook. If you have any questions about the internet send an email to philb@philb.com with the subject header 'column query'.