Netscape Navigator 3.X Tips #12



*1. COOLTALK: WHERE TO FIND OTHER COOLTALKERS

There are places online where you can meet up with other 
CoolTalk users. One is the CoolTalk Meeting Room at 

http://www.q5.com/ 

and another is 

http://www.albertlea.com/cgi-bin/startup 

The participants come from all over.


*2. COOLTALK: FREQUENT CALLER PLAN

CoolTalk lets you create speed dial buttons for those 
frequently called CoolTalk users. To add a speed dial button, 
from the CoolTalk window go to Conference, Start (or click the 
Conference button) to bring up the Open Conference dialog box. 
Click the Address Book tab. Select the user and click the Add 
To Speed Dial button. A New Button Properties dialog box 
appears. Enter or change the button label and the user's 
address, then click Add. The new button appears in the speed 
dial button bar of the CoolTalk window. From now on just click 
this button when you want to make a connection, rather than 
going to the Conference button. 

What if you add a bunch of speed dial buttons to the CoolTalk 
window, then decide you need to make some changes? Maybe you 
want to change the label, maybe you entered the wrong address, 
or maybe you want to delete a button. No problem. To change a 
speed dial button, right-click the button to bring up a context 
menu. If you want to change the label or address, 
click Properties.


*3. COOLTALK: BETTER TO RECEIVE?

Now you know how to place CoolTalk calls, but what happens when 
you're on the receiving end? First, remember that you must have 
CoolTalk running (minimized is okay) to receive a CoolTalk 
call. If someone calls you, you get an Invitation dialog box. 
The caller is identified in the Caller ID field. If you don't 
want to talk, just click Reject. If you do want to talk, click 
Accept; the CoolTalk window reappears with the microphone icon 
depressed, and you're ready to talk. 

If you just can't say no to an incoming call, CoolTalk lets you 
automatically answer all calls without clicking the Accept 
button. To set this up, select Conference, Options from the 
CoolTalk menu to open the Options dialog box. On the Conference 
tab, look for a section called Accept Invitations; then select 
Always. Of course, if you don't want to accept calls at all, 
choose the Never option, which is sort of like unplugging your 
telephone. Click OK to close the Options dialog box and save 
your changes.


*4. COOLTALK: SORRY, I CAN'T COME TO THE COMPUTER RIGHT NOW. . .

CoolTalk includes an answering machine. When you have it on, it 
answers your calls automatically and records messages from the 
caller. Before you turn it on, however, you should set it up to 
use the message of your choice. 

-From the CoolTalk menu, select Conference, Options and click 
the Answering Machine tab. There are two sections in the tab: 
Incoming Messages and Greeting. The first, of course, stores 
all your incoming messages in a folder on your computer's 
system. If you want to change this, just change the folder 
location. To change the answering machine greeting (CoolTalk 
does have a generic default greeting), click the red record 
button to start recording the new file. Speak your piece into 
your microphone, then click the square Stop button. That's it. 
If you want to make sure you've got the greeting the way you 
want, click the playback button and you'll hear your newly 
recorded message. 

When you've finished, click Close to dismiss the Options dialog 
box. Back in the CoolTalk window, click the Answering Machine 
button (the one that looks like an audiocassette) to activate 
the answering machine. 

By the way, if you don't like the sound of your own recorded 
voice, you don't have to use your own greeting. Any WAV file 
will do. Just open CoolTalk; choose Conference, Options; and 
select the Answering Machine tab. In the Greeting section, 
click the Browse button (it looks like a folder) and select the 
WAV file that you want to use as the greeting. Click Close to 
dismiss the Options dialog box and save your changes.


*5. SENDING A BLIND CC:

Ever wondered how to send a blind cc: to someone? A blind cc: 
is when you send an e-mail message to Fred, but you also send a 
copy to Wilma--except Fred can't tell that by looking at your 
message, and the message Wilma gets also shows only Fred as the 
recipient. It's a great way to hide a long list of recipients. 

When you're ready to send a message this way, put your 
official, visible-to-all recipient in the To: field. Now, in 
the Message Composition window, click the View menu and choose 
Mail Bcc. Now you'll see a new, Blind Cc: field in your mail 
message that wasn't there before. You can add as many names as 
you like to this field. Just separate each address with a comma 
and a space.


*6. SENDING A BLIND CC: WITHOUT REVEALING OTHER RECIPIENTS

What if you don't want any of your recipients to know who else 
is getting a particular message? Well, you can't just enter a 
slew of addresses in the Blind Cc: field and leave the To: 
field blank. There must always be an address listed in the To: 
field. But here's a simple trick you can use: Just enter your 
own e-mail address in the To: field.


*7. USE THE FIND COMMAND TO SEARCH WEB PAGES, MAIL

Looking for a specific word, name, link, or what-have-you in a 
Web page? Press Ctrl-F, which brings up the Find dialog box. 
Enter what you're looking for in the Find What field, then 
select the direction for the search (based on where your cursor 
is now). Now click Find Next to initiate the search. For a more 
specific search, choose the Match Case option, which ensures 
that only those results with matching capitalization are 
returned. To repeat the search, press F3. 

If you use the Find command while you're in the Netscape Mail 
window, you can search both mail headers and individual messages.


*8. CLOSE THE BROWSER WINDOW QUICKLY

Press Ctrl-W to quickly close the Netscape Navigator browser 
window. Make sure you've saved or bookmarked the page you're 
on, however, because the browser window closes immediately.


*9. READY, SET, RELOAD

Who needs menus when you can perform many Navigator functions 
right from the keyboard? To reload a page, simply press Ctrl-R.


*10. OPEN THE MESSAGE COMPOSITION WINDOW QUICKLY

You don't need to be in the Netscape Mail window to write a 
message. Press Ctrl-M any time you have Navigator open--whether 
you're in the browser, mail window, or news window--and the 
Message Composition window opens.
