Ask A Geek

Q: I have Mozilla FireFox set as my default web browser and when I click a URL in a Word Document I get an error message from Word saying “Unable to open [URL]. Cannot locate the Internet server or proxy server.” Word does not even try to open Mozilla FireFox it just tells me that it cannot open the URL. Is there anyway I can fix this?

A: This is one of those great Windows/Word features where if you don’t have Internet Explorer set as your default browser then you are going to have to either set Internet Explorer to be your default browser or do a tweak to your registry that I don’t suggest most people do. The easy solution is obviously just to set Internet Explorer as your default browser. Read the rest of this entry »

Q: How can I set my zoom & keep it from changing on it’s own?

A: In FireFox there is a domain level memory for the zoom of the browser. In previous versions of FireFox if you accidentally zoomed in on a page like askageek.com you could just close your browser and then open it up again and you would be at the regular zoom level. In the latest versions of FireFox, the browser actually remembers what zoom level you last had on a specific site so closing your browser will no longer fix the problem. Read the rest of this entry »

Q: I would like to increase the length of the search engine bar and perhaps decrease the length of the address bar in FireFox and Internet Explorer so that I can see the entire search question. Is there a way to do this? I don’t need to see much of the address bar info after the .com but often need to see the entire query in the search bar.

Q: I can’t start Mozilla FireFox. Each time I try I keep getting the following message: “Script: file:///C:/Program Files/Mozilla Firefox/components/nsExtensionManager.js:2585″

Q: We have a Xerox workcenter 4150 at our department and it works fine with all clients connected. The only problem I have is with a Mac OS 10.6 user. I can print from FireFox, entourage, and Safari but not from Word or PowerPoint. Do you guys know why is that? I re-installed the drivers and put the latest version but it still wont work.

Q: I often use FireFox, a great browser, and sometimes go to Tools -> Options -> Security -> saved password to read and erase the passwords for the sites that I visit. Do you know if there is a way to shorten this path, maybe insert something in the toolbar to speed up this task?

Q: When I click on a link in Thunderbird it opens IT even though Firefox is my default browser. What is going on and how can I fix it?

Q: I’ve downloaded greasemonkey and enabled it on FireFox. I still cannot see any command to download video when a video is posted. I’d like to download a video that a friend posted but cannot. Can you help!?

A: Greasemonkey allows users to install scripts that can allow you to do these kinds of things. So you still install to a install a script to download this video. You can visit userscripts.org for a large library of greasemonkey scripts that will hopefully take care of what you need.

Q: My daughters were playing around one day with the computer. They were turning it on and off. The next day when I turned on the computer the icons had disappeared. I have to use the task manager and FireFox to get on the Internet because my Internet explorer has disappeared. What can I do?

Q: I have tried to access my account on myspace but when I login my browser freezes. I wait and nothing happens. I refresh and nothing happens. Here’s the kicker. I eventually get a message that says “window IE not responding”. I can’t do anything and then IE just crashes.

My wife and I can access the account from her PC but not mine and we have no idea why? I can access any other site with no problem from my computer.

A: Sometimes it is useful to have another web browser installed on your computer incase you run into a situation like this. We highly suggest you look into installing FireFox on your system and try accessing myspace that way.

We realize this does not solve your problem in relation to getting IE to work on myspace but it will let you visit the site. To actually get IE working again you will probably need to clear out your cache, defrag your computer, and run other system maintenance. It is not guaranteed that it will fix your problem though because it is possible it is something as simple as a plugin you have installed causing the problem when visiting the site.

We suggest you just play it safe and always have two browsers installed on your computer incase something funky like this happens.