4th Form ICT 0809
 
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Lesson 8: Personalisation and home pages

The aims of this lesson are: 
  • to explore advanced customisation of the browser (using Firefox as an example);
  • to share ideas as to how you personalise your use of the web and software whilst at school;
  • to explore how a cross-session homepage may help personalise your working IT experience at school.
In this lesson we will talk about personalising web browsers and cross-session management of browsers, and you will also create your own homepage. To start with, we'll spend 5–10 minutes discussing the prep from last lesson.

You may not be that familiar yet with Firefox 3, the version of the browser now installed on the machine you're using for this lesson.  Take time to look at these links:

Cool Features in Firefox 3

AwesomeBar is awesome

Firefox add-ons allow for extensive customisation of the browser but contemporary web browsers allow a user to change the default layout in other ways. Mark Pilgrim shows how to do all of the following:
Within the class, how do people personalise their use of the web and software — or do people usually go with what's provided?  One route is to use web apps, web-based software that is accessed by a browser running on the school's network but which is otherwise provided as a service by independent companies.  If you start using web apps in this way (keeping your data in the cloud), you'll want to be sure you're using good, secure passwords. We'll take a moment in class to discuss how you manage your passwords …

Another way of customising a web browser to suit yourself is to create a home page. Mark Pilgrim shows how to use a group of tabs as the homepage — take a look at this tutorial.  (If you're interested in experimenting with something very new that's being developed for use in Firefox, you might like to check out Ubiquity — customising your Firefox experience through keyboard shortcuts. There's a tutorial here and a video overview here.)

There's more than one way to create a formal homepage and, for an alternative, we'll focus on iGoogle. Open http://www.google.com/ig in Firefox and play with the the options for design. Be sure to note: tabs; drag and drop positioning of separate items; 'add stuff'.

Of course, your iGoogle page will be lost between sessions unless you save it — and to do this you need your Google account. Click on 'Sign in', finish creating your own iGoogle page and save it: you now have a homepage you can open at school. (A simple guide to creating tabs on your new homepage is Creating Tabs on iGoogle.)

Now, or for prep, look at creating your own gadgets for your homepage: iGoogle: Make your own gadget. Also, check out the recent changes to iGoogle, What's new with iGoogle?.
Prep: finish designing your personal Google homepage and ii) create a group of tabs in Firefox as a homepage. The first can be shown in class next week. For the latter, take a screenshot (to find out how to take a screenshot on a Windows machine, look at either this page or this page), print it off and bring it in to class next week to discuss.