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The idea behind portals is simple: They're sites specifically designed to be our point of entry to the Internet. They do this by providing the services most often used by Web users: E-mail, search, personalized news, and other services. And they're meant to be the first site we see when we fire up our trusty browsers. The portals have gone out of their way to provide content and services and a professional interface, but you can throw a monkey wrench in their plans by brewing your own portal. What's that, you say? How in the world can I do that? Simple. The portal page is nothing more than a collection of links to other content and services, which branch off from the main page. But there's nothing stopping you from having complete control over what you want to see when starting your Web session. You may not be able to get those news headlines on your home-brewed page, but if you're a do-it-yourselfer, that's OK. With the knowledge of a little HTML or a handy Web authoring tool like Microsoft FrontPage or Macromedia Dreamweaver, you can construct your own portal in a few simple steps. Bookmarks as Portal Or, if you don't want to go to the effort of building your own portal, you can use another trick. If none of the portals appeals to you, then try setting your Bookmarks file as your start-up page. If you've been around the Net for awhile, you've no doubt accumulated a great deal of Bookmarks (Favorites on IE)--sites that you tell your browser to remember for easy access. You may not have realized, however, that you can do a lot with your Bookmarks file. You may also find that you don't need a portal to start your Web experience, and if that's the case, you can either set your Bookmarks as your portal, or select another frequently visited site to load first. Setting this up is the same as changing your start page to My Yahoo!. Simply find the option to change your home page, browse in your browser folder, find bookmarks.html and select. If you don't know how to change your home page, read our tutorial. Bookmarks are useful, but having your own portal takes the cake. You always have instant access to your resources when you start up or by clicking the home button while in the middle of your session. It's convenient and lots of fun to make a portal your way. Next
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