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Find your way back on wild Web trail

Q. When using Microsoft Internet Explorer, how does one go about returning to a previous screen without having to return back to the base or home page of the Internet? I am using Windows XP Home Edition SP2. People tell me there is an icon of arrows that does the trick. Where is it? How do you find it? I have examined the tool bar with no such luck. Can you advise this computer dummy what to do?

By John Torro, Times Correspondent
Published November 5, 2007

Q. When using Microsoft Internet Explorer, how does one go about returning to a previous screen without having to return back to the base or home page of the Internet? I am using Windows XP Home Edition SP2. People tell me there is an icon of arrows that does the trick. Where is it? How do you find it? I have examined the tool bar with no such luck. Can you advise this computer dummy what to do?

A. There are several ways to do this, with the easiest being simply clicking on the back arrow. You say the back arrow icon is not showing on your Internet Explorer. Here are a few things to check: From within Internet Explorer menu bar, click View, Toolbars. Make sure "Standard Buttons" is selected has a check next to it. If not, click it once to select it. It is a good idea to make sure the "Lock the Toolbars" option is selected to prevent inadvertent changes to your Internet Explorer appearance. If you are still not seeing the Back and Forward arrow icons, perhaps your Internet Explorer is in Full Screen Mode. To toggle Full screen Mode on/off, press the F11 button. Internet Explorer has many keyboard shortcuts that come in handy. The backspace key will also act as the Back arrow (return to previous page), as well as the ALT+left keyboard arrow. ALT+right keyboard arrow will act as the Forward arrow (next page). ALT+Home returns to your home page. CTRL-F is a favorite of mine to open a "Search on this Page" dialog. You can find the whole list of Internet Explorer keyboard shortcuts at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306832. Another handy Internet Explorer navigation feature many people miss is the Recent Pages button. This is represented by the small drop-down arrow next to the Back arrow icon. Clicking this drop-down arrow will present a list of recent pages in the reverse order that you navigated to get to your location. You can click any one of the pages to jump directly to that page. This can be very useful when you navigate to a page that automatically replaces your "last page" with the current page and results in keeping you stuck even when you click the Back arrow.

Q. I recently fried my Gateway computer and my Lexmark printer went with it. They were old. I recently read one of your articles about Event log which gives one a clue to particular problems. I was curious (as I did not want to fry this system) so I followed your instructions to pull up the log and I was amazed. I had a few yellow warning signs. Also, I was astonished to view red X errors (too many to count) indicated all on the same day - Source cdrom, Category none, Event 11. My questions is, now that I found them, what do I do with them? If I let them sit there, are they harming my system?

A. Repeated errors on hard drives need to be investigated. Each event ID has a specific meaning. Event 11 is "The driver detected a controller error on Device ... ." This could happen for a number of reasons such as outdated device firmware/drivers, loose cables or other hardware issues. They are not often easy to diagnose. This Microsoft Knowledge Base article can get you started: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314093.

Send questions to personaltech@sptimes.com or Personal Tech, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731. Questions are answered only in this column.

[Last modified November 2, 2007, 21:23:09]