Web slices in Internet Explorer 8

Another really excellent feature in Windows 7 Internet Explorer 8 is known as Web slices. Web slices keep an eye on distinctive information that is continuously being updated so that you don’t have to continually revisit the site that has the changing information in order to be up-to-date on it. The most clear use for Web slices are items that you dialect on or want to dialect on in eBay auctions. By adding the distinctive items that you are interested in winning as a Web slice, you can keep your eye on the dialects that come as the auction deadline nears in Internet Explorer 8 without having to actually reimbursing to the item’s page on the eBay Web site.

If you visit eBay with IE and then do a search on the site for auctions of retro table lamps. Then, as you will position the mouse over different lamps that were up for auction, a little green Web slice button showed to the immediate left of each description. I clicked its green button and Internet Explorer 8 displays the Add a Web Slice dialog box that you also see in this figure after locating a vintage, mid-century, Eames-era lamp that I wanted to bid on in the list.

The Internet Explorer adds a button for the vintage lamp at the start of the Favorites bar after clicking the Add to Favorites Bar button in the Add a Web Slice dialog box. Now, I can always get information on the number of bids and the remaining time till the lamp’s eBay auction comes to an end by clicking this button on the Favorites bar even when I’m surfing other Web sites and am nowhere near eBay. After the auction has ended and you have won the lamp, you can remove the button from the Favorites bar by right-clicking it and then selecting Delete from the shortcut menu.

Zooming in on a page

If the text on the Web page which you are visiting is very small for you to read comfortably on your screen then you can click the 100% button on the Status bar which is in the bottom-right corner of the Internet Explorer 8 window. This will zoom in on the page: If you will click once then it will zoom up to 125% magnification and if you will click second time then it will zoom up to a 150% magnification. Clicking this button a third time brings you to 100%. Note that you can also zoom in by using the keyboard and pressing the 'Ctrl' key and the plus key '+'.

You can select the percentage from the Zoom drop-down menu which is to the immediate left of Safety on the toolbar and which you access by positioning the mouse pointer over (or clicking) the Page drop-down button if you need to boost the magnification of a Web page beyond 150%. The Zoom menu percentage selections has 50%, 75%, 100%, 125%, 150%, 200%, 400% and Custom zoom options. You can also do zoom by clicking the Change Zoom Level button which is the drop-down button to the immediate right of the 100% button on the Status bar and then you can click the percentage item from its pop-up menu.

If none of these Predetermines work for you the you can click Custom to open the Custom Zoom dialog box, where you can type any whole percentage number between 1 and 1,000 in the Percentage Zoom text box, or select it with the up and down spinner buttons before you click OK.

You can also use the shortcut keys Ctrl+plus sign (+) and Ctrl+minus sign (–) to zoom the Web page up and down, respectively, in 10% increments.