b. Make changes on your personal page such that
[20 points]
Hints:
1. Go to http://live.excite.com/ . It's a good idea to close other applications before you do this and to keep just one open browser (Netscape) window. Part of the modification process appears to be somewhat memory greedy, so focusing on just one task increases the chances that everything will go smoothly. I know, Win95 supposedly offers a "multi-tasking" environment but even I run into trouble with my 32 MB office station. In particular, do not keep Corel WP8 open while you are doing your channel modifications.
2. Click on "personalize", fill in the personal information on the next screen and register. Make a note of the exact form of the e-mail address and the password you entered. If all goes well, you should receive a personalized page back with an extended URL showing in the locator bar on top of the screen. This would be something like http://my.excite.com/?uid=4E48145678246A457 (the number, of course, would be different - what you see here is fake). However, if you don't get such an extended URL (which you should put in your bookmark file), you can always locate your personal channel by using the e-mail address and the password from your registration.
3. To make the changes as assigned, click on the appropriate "change" button located in each segment of the default front page. Then follow the on screen instructions. To put an item on your front page that is not on the default front page, go to the specific page and push a change button on that page. You will then have an option to put an item directly on your personal front page.
4. Be ware, that changes that make may not be immediately visible. This is because the browser (Netscape) always tries to load a previously loaded page from its "cache" (located on your station) to save time. Click on the RELOAD button to force the browser to get a new (updated, changed) copy of a page.
5. The first three changes are pretty straightforward, the forth requires
a bit more work. First, you need to describe certain key words that would
identify the news you are looking for. This is very similar to defining
a search in Altavista or other search engines. Then, Excite gives you a
selection of additional key words that you may want to include to sharpen
the focus. Finally, you get a selection of news items based on what you
have entered so far. For each one, you can click a box indicating whether
you "liked" this one or not. "Liking", of course, means whether it fits
the topic, not whether you liked the contents. So, you may hate pornography,
but a news story dealing with say "call girls on the web" would fit the
assigned topic. So, you would click "liked it". The more careful you are
in defining the custom news topics, the more focused the results will be.
In evaluating your homework, I will check what news story you get - in
addition to just checking whether such a custom news item is there.