Brower windows becoming active after loading

[NeutronStar]

I always open multiple browser windows when viewing web pages so that I don't have to wait for individual pages to load. Then I can pick and choose which window I want to view while the other's load. Usually this works just fine. However, when I do this with Amazon.com it's a real pain because for some reason their windows automatically become the current window as soon as they're done loading.

For example. Suppose I go to Amazon and search for a book. Then while that window is loading I click back over here to the physics forum and start reading a thread. Well, right in the middle of my read the Amazon window pops up in my face because it was done loading. Well pooh pooh! I wasn't ready to view that window yet because I was BUSY reading a thread in another window!

It seems that Amazon.com is one of the few sites that actually does this. Most other sites will simply load in the background and remain hidden until I decide to click back over to them.

Does anyone know how I can stop this nonsense from happening by changing some settings on my browser or something?

I'm running Internet Explorer version 6.0

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[chroot]

Turn off javascript. That's about the only way.

- Warren

 

[Anttech]

Use firefox, Tabbed browsing is far better

 

[gerben]

yes do not use IE, as an alternative to firefox you could also use netscape

 

[dduardo]

http://www.mozilla.org/

 

[NeutronStar]

Turn off javascript. That's about the only way.

- Warren

Turning off javascript seems to have done the trick. It also doesn't seem to have had any adverse affect on applets which I use often.

So I'll try this for a while and see if it causes any other probelms. So far it doesn't seem to have affected much of anything else.

I thank everyone else for their suggestions. I really don't want to have to download and install any new browser right now. IE serves my needs and I might be able to live without javascript altogether. If I need it I can always turn it back on.

Thanks for the quick responses. And thank you, Warren, for solving the immediate problem in a quick and easy way.

 

[dduardo]

Turning off javascript completely is dangerous as many login scripts use it to encrypt your passwords before it gets sent. You may not notice the difference because the login script will just default to sending form information without passing it through the javascript.

Just do us all a favor and download Firefox. If you didn't know IE has been losing a lot of market share recently and is now in the 80% range compared to the 90% range it was not to long ago.

http://www.mozilla.org/

 

[NeutronStar]

Turning off javascript completely is dangerous as many login scripts use it to encrypt your passwords before it gets sent. You may not notice the difference because the login script will just default to sending form information without passing it through the javascript.

Hmmmmm? That's interesting.

I'm not sure which is worse,... having to turn javascript on and off for security reasons, or downloading and installing a new program?

I almost ALWAYS have problems when I download new software from the Internet. Those people have a nasty habit of making all kinds of changes to icons and start-up menus that I didn't authorize.

They also quite often download spyware and other junk without asking. Then I have to go to great lengths to get rid of that junk.

From my point of view, downloading and installing software from the internet is a higher security risk.

I monitor my Interent connection constantly. Right now it's extremely "quiet". In other words, it only exchanges information when I'm doing something. If I sit here and don't do anything nothing gets exchanged.

Whenever I download a new program my Internet connection starts getting "active" exchanging information almost continuously when I'm not doing a damn thing. After MUCH troubleshooting it can usually be traced to spyware or some type of annoying virus that I have to then go to all sorts of trouble to get rid of.

My computer has been "quiet" and well-behaved for about 8 months now. And I'd like to keep it that way. Eight months ago I down loaded and installed a real player. What a hassle! I think that half of that download was spyware packages! I had a hell of a time cleaning up my system without having to reload it completely. I had to go in and murder some of that crap by hand!

 

[dduardo]

Trust me, Firefox has absolutely no spyware. The guys working on the project are looking to better the Internet not cripple it, like Microsoft's IE. If your still afraid of it containing spyware your invited to look at the source code. Just like Linux, Firefox is open source.

http://www.mozilla.org/source.html

 

[NeutronStar]

Trust me, Firefox has absolutely no spyware. The guys working on the project are looking to better the Internet not cripple it, like Microsoft's IE. If your still afraid of it containing spyware your invited to look at the source code. Just like Linux, Firefox is open source.

http://www.mozilla.org/source.html

Well I do like the fact that it's open source. And I also like Linux. In fact, I'd be using Linux right now except this stupid computer I have won't allow me to load any operating system on it other than the one that it came with from the manufacture which is Windows XP. I think it has a proprietary BIOS or something. I was actually thinking of changing the BIOS chip and then decided to just use it with XP instead.

By the way, I'm thinking of buying a new machine. I'd actually like to buy a barebones system that I can load whatever OS I want to on it. I might try Linux if I can find a good motherboard to build from. Any suggestions where I might find some decent motherboards?

I'd like to find something that's fast (maybe about 2.x GHz) but still retains retrograde technology capabilities. I have several pieces of scientific equipment that require ISA slots, yet almost all new computers have PCI slots only.

Does anyone make a fast motherboard that still has a couple ISA slots available?

Also, anyone know of any good sites where I can pick up an older motherboard with both ISA and PCI slots that isn't too slow?

Just as a last note. Now that I've been using XP and Mircosoft Word I have created a whole lot of linked documents that contain equations produced by the Microsoft Equation Editor. Is there any word processor that will run under Linux and support all of these linked Microsoft documents complete with their editable equations? I mean without turning the equations into graphics or losing them altogether!

 

[dduardo]

Openoffice is a very good MS office replacement. It is open source and availible for windows, linux and mac. In terms of MS equations, Openoffice will handle it and from my experience their equation editor is much better then Microsofts. Just like latex you have the option of just typing all the commands instead of clicking on the stupid menu all the time. For example, in Openoffice, when you are in the word processor and add a formula you get a nice text box shows up at the bottom of the screen. You can then type things like:

x_1 = {x+1} over {y+2}^2

It is very similar to Latex except you don't have all those slashes. I don't know about you but I find this way of typing in equations much more efficient.

Here is a screenshot of the equation editor in Openoffice:

http://www.openoffice.org/screenshots/ooo11/math/sc2.png

By the way you still have the option of using the menu just like MS Office.

 

[NeutronStar]

Openoffice is a very good MS office replacement. It is open source and availible for windows, linux and mac.

That's nice to know. Thanks. I've been thinking about switching over to Linux when I upgrade to a newer computer, but my main concern is losing all my Microsoft compatiblity. I also have the Microsoft Visual Studio programming package to worry about. I have a lot of software that I've written for robotics projects and I'd hate to have to rewrite it.

As far as the Microsoft equation editor is concerned I've been using keyboard hotkeys for most of what I do. Using Ctrl+T and then pressing a character will bring up a lot of special templets like Ctrl+T-S will create a fullblown summation template. Or Ctrl+T-I will create a fullblown Integral template. There are about 15 templates hotkeyed this way including fractions, superscript or subscript or both (Ctrl+J), the absolute value bars, and others.

There are also hotkeys for several special characters using Ctrl+k-char, like infinity, or the "approach" arrow, or partial derivative symbol, etc.

And finally I can call up all of the Greeks using Ctrl+G-char. This is also case sensitive so that Ctrl+G-a prints a lower case Greek alpha, and Ctrl+G-A prints an uppercase Greek alpha and so on. All of the Greeks are hotkeyed.

For the most part I can type in most equations without using the mouse at all. I also created a hotkey in Word to insert the equations (I chose Ctrl+alt+I) which automatically inserts an equation without having to use the mouse. Then just pressing the escape key will get me out of an equation and back into the word processor. So I can type in equations on the fly without ever touching the mouse. Every once in a while I need something that doesn't have a hotkey and I need to rely on the mouse to get it from the menu. But not very often.

Sometimes when typing symbolic logic I need to use the mouse a lot because they didn't seem to offer many hotkeys for the symbols of set theory. But for standard equations they did a fair job. You can get pretty carried away without touching the mouse at all.

I couldn't use it othewise because most of my documents have an equation after every sentence or two. Most of them have partial derivatives with fractions and summations and limits with subscripts, and superscripts on just about every term. I seldom have to use the mouse at all.

 

[NeutronStar]

Mouse Phobia!

Funny thing! :!)

After telling you about all of the hotkeys for MS Equation Editor I decided to go do a search to see if I could find even more hotkeys. I actually found a few more, but of much more importance I disovered how to do away with the mouse altogether!

I didn't know this myself, but once in the equation editor (which I start with a Word hotkey) all I have to do is press F2 to activate the editor menu and then I can use the arrow keys to get to any template that I want. Then just press ENTER and it gets inserted into the equation. So now I don't even need to use the mouse at all, even when using rare templates.

Funny how that came out of this conversation.

This is great!

By the way here's some links to a couple of sites that give all this information in case anyone is interested.

http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/ec/equations/equation.html

http://spot.pcc.edu/~ssimonds/thisandthat/msword.htm

 

[dduardo]

Linux was designed to be a programming environment. If you haven't written any code specific to the win32 API then you should just be able to compile your programs with GCC and they should work just fine. If your looking for a development suite here are two:

http://www.kdevelop.org/

http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/index.html

and here is information about the compiler used primarily on linux and other unices:

http://gcc.gnu.org/

---

On the topic of the equation editor, that's great that you can use the shortcuts, but you still need to pickup your hand and use the arrow keys to move from one field to another. Maybe I've been spoiled by Vim, but the less I have to pick up my hands the more efficient I am.

http://www.vim.org/

 

[NeutronStar]

Well it certainly appears that Linux has come a long way since I taught it years ago. I kind of figured that it would, but at that time it was up in the air as to whether it would take off or not. Back then I really had no choice but to go with Microsoft. It simply made more sense at that time especially since everything I taught was geared toward Microsoft. Plus I got all the software for free as part of my job.

Just for the record I've never had a problem with any Microsoft product. I've heard all the nightmare stories about Windows systems crashing right and left. Well it's never happened to me. I've run just about every version of Windows that was ever made and never had a serious problem yet. I've also never had to reload a system simply because it got "old". I currently have four Windows computers networked together. The oldest one has been running Windows 98 SE for over 5 years and hasn't crashed or hung up yet. Of course, I run clean systems. I believe that most Windows problems are due to operator error, sloppy installations, or in most cases, pirated software that was never fully installed correctly. The other thing I do is partition my hard drive and load the OS on its own partition. It just makes the whole system run faster. I learned that trick way back in the DOS days.

In any case, the Linux is looking good. I might give it a shot here if I can find some decent hardware to build a new node on my intranet. I really have no problems with Microsoft products though. But I'd like to try a Linux system anyhow. If I like it a lot maybe I'll actually become free from Microsoft someday.

I do like the open-source aspect of Linux-based software.