Are you an Internet Explorer 6 user?

If you answered a resounding, 'Yes!', then read on because I have some info that's really going to help you. For years now, if you wanted integrated search, tabbed browsing, streamlined RSS handling, and the ability to customize your browser, you really had to use Firefox. More recently, IE7 was an option, but a lot of people (45% of the readers of this blog) still use IE. So all of you 45% were left out in the cold when it came to a turbo-charged browsing experience.

Well no more! Windows Live Toolbar fully supports Internet Explorer version 6 and gives you everything that IE 7 has and more. Main features include:

• Search: Search box in tool bar. Suggested searches as you type. Choose to search only for images, news etc.
• Feeds: auto-detects feeds in page. One click subscribe.
• Tabbed browsing: My tabs - open all your favorite sites with one click.
• Customization: add custom buttons to show you things like News, Airfares, Weather, Movie Reviews right on your toolbar.
• Security and Privacy: integrated OneCare Advisor tells you when sites are risky.
  

[If you're ready to grab it now then: Click here to download Windows Live Toolbar for free.]


As a web developer, I use Firefox for my base browser, and IE all the time to test sites. Windows Live Toolbar has really made my web development tasks easier, with the excellent features it adds. I get the same integrated search, easy RSS subscription, tabbed browsing, and customisation ability that I get in Firefox - and it's just a one-click install to get it.

Another group of people who will benefit from Live Toolbar are your family members who are always asking you for help. The great thing about the Toolbar is that it makes a lot of the tasks people want to do these days easy. For example, take subscribing to RSS. I know people who work in Online Media who don't even know how to do this. They are Firefox users and they can't even work it out - and they'd love to know! In this case, it is really just easier for them to stick to IE 6 + Live Toolbar. They'll get all the features they want, delivered in an easy way they can understand.

So I downloaded the Toolbar for IE6 yesterday while doing some site testing for a client. Once installed, I was skeptical about how it would compare to Firefox. After using it for a while, I was quite impressed. Yes, you could say, 'Well Firefox has had this for aaaaaaaaages!'. But that really isn't the point - the point is - IE6 now has the features - so use them!

Click here to download Windows Live Toolbar for free.

Use the link above to download Windows Live Toolbar from Microsoft. There is no signup required. It also comes in many languages other than English. The full list of languages is here. Enjoy your brand new IE6 browsing experience.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions - any.. at all!



p.s. see below for the main features.

	Start a search from anywhere The search box on Windows Live Toolbar makes it convenient to find anything you're looking for online. To get you the answer faster, the toolbar shows you the most popular queries as you type. You can also choose the kind of answers you want, such as news or images.		Personalize your web experience Custom buttons let you customize your Windows Live Toolbar to get the information you care about most, like movie reviews or airfare updates. Download custom buttons from Windows Live Gallery. (Don't see the custom button you want? It's easy to create your own.)
	Stay informed about topics you care about Interested in specific content? Windows Live Toolbar lets you detect and add feeds to your Live.com home page with a single click.		Help protect yourself against phishing scams and viruses Windows Live OneCare Advisor is included with your toolbar to help keep you safer. We've also improved our blocking technology to better protect your personal information from unauthorized access.
	Make web surfing simple with tabbed browsing Easily manage a bunch of web pages in a single browser window. Quickly open new tabs and switch between web pages. You can open your favorite sites with one click by using My Tabs.

How to conditional format a cell based on the contents of another cell

Microsoft Excel tip

This tip shows you how to apply conditional formatting to a cell depening on the value of another cell.

For example say you have a worksheet to store Tasks.
It has a Status column, with values TBD, Active, etc... and a description column which stores text.

Let's say you want to make the description cells yellow if the Status cell is 'TBD'

To accomplish this, click on the cell you wish to format, then click Format->Conditional Formatting.

In the Formula field, you would put:

=FIND("TBD",$F32)

... where F32 is is the Status cell next to the Description cell. (The $ tells Excel to leave F as the column reference if you paste this formula into other rows.)

And then specify the formatting, e.g. Yellow shading.

That's it. You can also use the format painter or Paste Special to paste this formula into other cells.

A nice backlink checker I just found

When building your presence online through SEO techniques, you need to have a reliable method of checking how many backlinks you have. Yahoo Site Explorer does an OK job of this. As an aside, why does Google do this so differently??

Anyway the SEO Pro link checker is the best one I've seen so far. You put in your URL and it prints out a neat table of:

• backlink URL
• backlink homepage pagerank
• backlink page pagerank
• backlink site incoming links
• nofollow: yes/no
• anchor text
• anchor type (not sure what this is - but I think it tells you when someone just pasted your URL in and didn't apply any anchor text - a la splogs)

This gives you a pretty nice picture of your exposure to backlinks. Anchor text, in particular, is awesome because it is important to vary your anchor text for a realistic backlink profile.

The final killer feature is the export to CSV. It is a good idea to track your backlinks every month or so, so with this, you can paste the CSV into Excel and run some reports, graphs, etc. This enables you to apply some methodology to your SEO efforts.

Nice one SEO Pro - golf clap!