Product Description

You’ve heard the saying, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” Actually, most Internet browsers are done right. Chances are, you’re comfortable with yours. Yet, you may want to build your own. You don’t have to start from scratch—you can start with the Browser Construction Kit on the CD-ROM that comes with Internet Explorer Construction Kit for Dummies. Best of all, there’s no programming required.

Whether you personalize your browser or build one just for your business, you can include features and functions not available with traditional browsers, including:

• Log file: a list of all Web sites visited
• Alarm: an audible or popup alarm that signals the end of the time period used with the countdown timer
• Lock: prevents the custom browser from further browsing
• Approved list: list of Web sites to which browsing is limited
• Spy: screen captures taken once a minute
• Popular sites: a list of the most-visited sites

You can make your browser G-rated. That’s great if you have curious kids and are concerned about adult sites and Internet safety or simply want to limit their browsing time. The ability to limit access to specific sites also comes in handy if you own a business and want customers in your store to be able to browse your online catalog, but not to comparison shop!

Written (and more importantly, programmed) by Clayton Walnum, author of Standard C++Bible and many other computer books, Internet Explorer Construction Kit For Dummies takes you step-by-step through:

• Adding borders to give your browser a graphical theme
• Using window skin to add an image to your window’s background
• Making the bar scene —assembling the toolbar, designing the menu bar, pulling together the status bar, and customizing the address bar
• Creating buttons and icons

In addition to your Browser Construction Kit, the bonus CD-ROM includes several sample projects you can create, sample graphics for creating custom buttons and skins, and an evaluation version of Paint Shop Pro8 so you can get down to work. You even have everything you need to create a browser with themed graphics, choosing from animal, art, music, sea, sports, or more.

Have fun creating your own personalized, custom-built browser. That way, it will be done just right for you!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2294965 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

From the Back Cover
Personalize your browser or build one just for your business

Create a G-rated browser for your kids or one geared toward your hobbies

Think you can build a better browser than those big guys? Go for it! You don't need a degree in programming, just these easy-to-follow instructions and the tools on the CD-ROM. Make your browser reflect your personality, get rid of things that slow you down, keep the kids from browsing off-limits, and more!

Discover How To:

• Customize toolbars, status bars, and menus
• Personalize the look with graphics and skins
• Create a special-topic browser
• Limit access to protect children online
• Track online time and sites visited

About the Author
Award-winning author Clayton Walnum has been writing about computers since the early ’80s. During that time, he’s published nearly 60 books and hundreds of articles and reviews. He’s also published fiction, humor, and interviews. Clay has a degree in Computer Science and is the former editor of two nationally distributed Atari computer magazines, ANALOG and ST-Log.

Customer Reviews

Save your money and time
The installation process for IECK for Dummies doesn't work as described. Even once you get it to work, the package is unable to find some material where it expects to find it - because nobody ever tested the product on a clean machine (i.e., not the one on which the author developed it). There is only the most cursory assistance in dealing with problems - like "what if the software can't find one of its components where it expects" referred to above. And it would be hard to start in on such assistance because the book is not a serious learning tool.

The lack of any lerning value is the most serious flaw in the book. The book teaches you how to use the specific package that comes with it that may or may not work. There is no explanation of how the package interfaces with Internet Explorer. And kit itself does not appear to work properly. Although the book describes how to build several different browsers, it provides the code for only 2 of them and those will not load into the kit - they are built to look for stuff in a directory on the author's computer and cannot find them unless you happen to install the kit into the same directory the author was using. Even when I fixed one sample, the sample would still not function because of an error in the kit itself. That means that if you like to start with a working application, see how it works, then modify it to work differently, you are out of luck. It also suggests that the kit itself is buggy.

Extreme browser customization
The book covers using the Internet Explorer Construction Kit (included on the CD) to build your own custom web browser. Mainly this involves putting a new 'skin' on the browser by using customized graphics, like sheet metal, or custom buttons. There is one chapter on securing the browser from visiting certain sites. If you have an interest in using the software on the CD to build custom web browsers for PC then this book is for you.