2 posts tagged “ie”

Now it’s Foxfire’s turn to be in the hot seat. From time to time, I run into things Foxfire won’t do. Such as saving filled in forms, watching on demand video from Netflix and other general quirkiness.

On the plus side, it downloads quickly and is supposed to be “safer” online than IE. Okay, so I use Foxfire most of the time.

Just now, I was playing with Google Docs. Trying out stuff I hadn’t tried before.

I uploaded my July diary document that I had created in Word. This document comes complete with a Table of Contents.

In Word TOC listings are linked to the heading they refer to. Handy. The way it should be.

I had noticed, but had never tried Google Docs’ Bookmark feature. I like that kind of thing and make use of it from time to time, so I scroll down to the first entry of the month after the TOC. I insert a bookmark. Cool. Then I go to the top of the document, highlight the corresponding TOC entry and click on Link.

It gives me the option of picking between a URL, a file, a bookmark, or an e-mail address. Nice. I like flexible.

I choose Bookmark. My recently created Bookmark appears in the drop-down pick list, and I pick it.

When I return to the document, the first line of the TOC section now looks like a hyperlink. So far, so good.

I hover and get a description, but my pointer doesn’t turn to the little hand I’m expecting to see. I click once and get a drop-down option line. This asks me if I want to follow the link, change it, or delete it. More flexibility. I’m okay.

I click on follow the link. The screen goes blank for a couple of seconds, then I’m right where I started from on the TOC entry line, but now I have the entire document in a new tab. I did this a couple of times before I realized I was getting a new tab with the document in it each time.

I’m not so happy, but I remember how Firefox can be quirky sometimes, so I decide to try the same thing in IE (Internet Explorer)..

I guess you know what happened. Yep. It worked just like it was supposed to.

So, you might ask, and legitimately so, why don’t you just use IE and shut the f#@k up.

Well…IE does lots of things really well, however the one thing it does that irritates me is when I increase the Zoom in Google Docs (and anywhere else), it causes me to have to scroll horizontally to be able to see everything. Firefox knows to keep everything in page width, despite the Zoom level.

I’ve looked at the set up section of IE a couple of times hoping to be able to remedy this, but so far, Stevie Wonder can’t find anything.

Since I’m mostly using Google for storage and organization, I guess it’s okay, but I if I’m going to the trouble to put a link in a document, there’s a good chance I’ll be referencing that document at some point, isn’t there?

I downloaded and tried Opera the other day. I removed it less than an hour later.

I’d love to find a product that does everything all the time, the way it should. It seems everything has issues, caveats, or just plain lack of features.

When I was younger and could see normally, I should have learned how to program so I could write my own stuff that probably wouldn’t always work. At least I could fix my own stuff.

Looking forward to a relaxing evening around the fireplace with hot cocoa and marshmallows.

Well…I’ll at leas relax.

In a previous post, I had mentioned that I'm trying to wean myself off the Microsoft teat. I inadvertently took another step in that direction yesterday.

I had an idea for a new story and started scribing in Google Docs. I was using Internet Explore (IE) from Microsoft. I use both IE and Mozilla's Firefox. Each has its good points and its weaknesses, so sometimes one is better suited for the task at hand than the other.

I also have two Gmail accounts. One is my primary e-mail for personal business and keeping in touch with friends. The other is for "playing". I use it when I sign up on blogging sites, when I want information form one place or another, like NBA.com, etc.

I discovered that sometimes having both Gmail accounts open in the same browser program doesn't always work well. So, in my Virgo brain, I thought I would just use one browser for one account and the other for the other.

This also allowed me to logically separate my documents between the two accounts. I love organization, but this turned out to be overkill, although I learned a very interesting lesson from trying it.

As I got into my new story on IE yesterday, I noticed a couple of things. First as I increased the size of the text on the screen to accommodate my low vision, I would have to scroll horizontally. This never happens in Foxfire regardless of how big I make the screen text.

A little annoying, but not devastating. Later, I noticed I wasn't making any spelling errors. This is highly irregular. My low vision precludes me from seeing every little detail the way I would like and I often miss type-o's as I type.

At the end of the portion of the story I was writing, I searched everywhere in Google docs for an option to turn on, or off the spell check on-the-fly feature. No luck.

I finished the story in Word and moved on with my life. Tonight, I decided to investigate some more. I actually broke down and searched the Google Docs help where I found out the spell check as you type is a feature of Firefox, not a feature of Google Docs.

Needless to say, I've decided to still keep both browsers open to check the two e-mail accounts, but I'll be doing all my Google Docs in Firefox where I have spell check as-you-type and no horizontal scrolling on the screen.

I do have one issue with Firefox I can't seem to figure out. When you float your cursor over icons and other items in a web page, often there is a bubble help, bubble info thingy that pops up. In IE, this works perfectly. In Firefox, I get an empty (or at least it looks empty to me) white box. I have my bubble help set to black background with white text in Windows. This is what I get with IE. If anyone knows why I don't get the same thing in Firefox, can you let me know? I'd really appreciate it.

I suppose I could resort to the Help file my self. Maybe I'll do this and if I find an answer, I'll post it here for all to see.

Have a good Sunday.

Soon after posting this I downloaded the Opera browser. Basically it didn't work for me while using Google Docs. Even outside Google Docs, I found it quirky and inconsistent.

I have since uninstalled it. I have little patience for quirky software that I don't have to use.

I did figure out the tooltips thing in Foxfire. Foxfire was recognizing the font color I had specified in my Windows Display Properties, but it chose to ignore the background color I had specified.

I changed the setting to black text with white background and now I have fully functional tooltips in Firefox. Can we get a hallelujah from the congregation? What a performance.