Previews of each site before you click on them would help you to recognise page design and logos quickly, and GooglePreviewIE does just this. It adds a search toolbar that presents thumbnail images of the pages that the URLs link to. It's available from www.ackroyd.de/googlepreview-ie.
The toolbar includes many popular search engines as well as the Google default. You can alter the number of results returned per page using the dropdown list'.
5. Switching sites
Tabbed browsing finally came to Internet Explorer in version 7. Tabs make better use of screen space, but it can be very easy to accidentally close the wrong one. The Open Last Closed Tab add-on was developed to help out in just such an emergency.
Once it's installed, select 'Open Last Closed Tab' from the dropdown list next to Tools, and then select 'Open Last Closed Tab' again to open the last closed tab.
Alternatively, use the keyboard shortcut [ALT]+[X] to quickly open the last closed tab. Repeat this action to open the tab closed before that one.
6. Saving sessions
Talking of tabs, Firefox can be set to remember each tab that you had open when you last closed the browser.
You can get similar behaviour in Internet Explorer by using IE Sessions; an add-on that enables you to save the state of each tab you had open. It's a handy addition to IE7, and is available from various sources, including www.download.com.
IE Sessions installs in the same way as most applications, and you can stick with the default install location in Windows XP. If you're using Vista, opt to browse to the installation folder and put it at 'C:/Users/[username] AppData(hidden folder)/ Roaming/IE Sessions'.
To use the add-on, choose 'Tools | IE Sessions'. Click 'Save Current' to save all the tabs that you have open. You'll need to provide a name for this session.
When you need to restore a session, choose 'Tools | IE Sessions', select the one that you want to restore and click 'Load'. IE Sessions also includes import and export features so that you can move sessions between different computers that run the add-on.
To do this, choose 'Import/Export', then 'Export' and provide a file name and location for the session file. Move this file to the computer you want to change to and launch IE, choosing 'Tools | IE Sessions | Import/Export | Import'. Browse to the file that you exported and click 'Open'. Select it from the IE Sessions list and choose 'Load'.
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First published in PC Plus, Issue 276
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